Control
by lostchild277
Summary: Of course it's about FD, starting with the end of part I. Still stuuupid title, but at least a little updated. So whoever might read this crap: PLEASE R & R.
1. Prologue In the beginning

_Disclaimer: I do not own Final Destination nor any of its characters, unfortunately. But the rest belongs to me, more or less. Thanks to James Wong and Glenn Morgan for not sueing me for borrowing the characters for this pathetic excuse for a story.  
  
Hi there! This is the first fanfic I ever published in the NET, after a long hard struggle with myself. I usually don't show my stories to anyone except my best mate. But hey, the worst things that could happen are a) noone's gonna read it at all; b) no review; c) only "Fuck off" 's. So what? I can handle that! At least I know where the rope's hanging, so I can take it and shoot myself at the deepest and of the ocean, as someone used to say. Anyway: Apparently I'm actually no native English-speaker and so it's obviously kinda hard for me to do this in English, but - being the weird girl I am - I somehow considered it to be better to put it that way. Of course I won't be able to avoid a lot of really silly, disturbing mistakes and since translating it: some things / jokes don't work in both languages - if they do at all - . So forgive me my limited number of words (original ideas, ability to create something and so on and so forth), but I'm afraid I won't be able to use all the finesse(s) this language contains. Basically I'm better. Honestly. I still dunno what devil seduced me to take that wonderful story and spoil it with my own 'ideas'. I guess my addiction to it is my only excuse.  
  
Though I invented new characters, this is not a Mary-Sue-Story (surely you've been knowing that term for years since you're the native English/American speakers, I only found out 'bout some weeks ago that there was a special expression, well .... for what this is not), which doesn't make it any better, I know. But as there are only 3 persons left and I don't believe that triangle-relationships really work, somebody's either gotta die or to be left alone in the end. Well, we'll see ....  
  
Whoa, long enough! If you like: just shoot me. Or .... thinkin' .... better don't. Whatever: read it or leave it. I'm not trying to make you say *Whoa, look, the poor one, it's not even her mother tongue, she seems to be a little confused and nevertheless she's trying, she deserves being told how cool she is, even though it's a lie.* This is a free land .... NET and so don't ya worry to spit the truth into my face .... I'm old enough to know how to commit suicide when someone hurts me. :0)) At least I put it here, come what may. And even if it's only my imbecility that gives you a short laugh; I got used to be the dorkhead.  
  
Sick as I am I have the nerve to translate the first lines without any professional help from my other best mate whose English is pretty much better than mine, may you forgive me.  
  
_ "Writing a novel is like making love,  
but it's also like having a tooth pulled.  
Pleasure and pain. Sometimes it's like making love while having a tooth  
pulled."  
_  
Dean Koontz  
  
(Though I would never dare to call that crap I'm writing a novel.)_

Prologue

They say that in the beginning, there was darkness. A great, impenetrable obscurity. It felt safe, being the ruler of the entire black space there was. On account of his vast power it never occurred to him that it could have an enemy, something, suddenly appearing out of nothing, a tiny little thing, even too small to be afraid of, that would arise an eternal fight between them. 

One day - though he didn't know that term then - , the dark lord started up with a shiver, like having woken up from a bad dream, realising that something incredible had been taken place during his rest. For nothing had ever been able to harm him he _could_ rest in those ancient times. 

A bright little spot had hit his eyes and he closed them in pain. He tried to destroy it, but couldn't. So he covered it. Covered it with his gloom. But it was still present. Only the knowledge of its existence infuriated the master. 

And it grew. Slowly, but constantly, until all his obscurity was no longer sufficient to hide it. At first the space got a shade of pale grey, then it cleared up more and more. 

Though the lord refused to, he was slightly pushed back until there came a time he had to share his dark space with the brightness. Reluctantly he saw it extend. 

Yet it had only started. Creatures of the dark began to taste the light and many of them decided to leave their side. But darkness wouldn't let them slip away so easily. It placed its seed into their souls, a painful longing, making them feel each moment where they actually belonged to. Light also lost its children as they followed gloom's sweet seductive call. 

Brightness seemed to gain more power, becoming stronger than anything had ever been, and darkness was no more willing to let it grow, nor exist at all. 

So the lurid master decided .... 

****

_‚__He who dies a thousand deaths meets the final hour with the calmness of one who approaches a well remembered door.'_ Heywood Brown 

_*__Beach: Thank you soooo much for your wonderful review!! I was really taken aback that someone already read this ‚p.e.f.a.s'. I hope you like the following as well, but even if not: be frank with me. Criticism is welcome and will surely help me to improve my writing. (Unless you just wanna tell me how full of shit I am: cuz I already know that. :o)) ) (Oops, sounds a little like the third paragraph of the ‚Writer's Etiquette', hm? But I really mean it.) TXL!!*_

_‚Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.'_ Epicurus

Xmas 1991 

_Walkin__' in a winterwonderland.... _

The snow softly fell to the ground, creating a beautiful wintry landscape. It was December 25th, 2 am, a time at which most of the children were sleeping, exitedly dreaming of all the presents they would finally be allowed to unwrap the next morning. The world outside their windows was peaceful, the white streets sleeping admidst the snowed up city.

The woman lives in one of those big old apartment houses, ya know, that kind, where they have metallic squiggled grids on their ventilation shafts She lives alone in this four-room-apartment with the high ceilings and the big windows. By day it's very quiet in there, you can only hear a little of the noise of the traffic, five floors down below. You don't see much of the other lodgers, mainly old and childless people. By night the streets are empty and the habitation is getting nearly deadly silent. Only some noises are getting through the ventilation shaft. Voices. At first they are like a whispering, but at nightfall they become increasingly louder. The woman's been living there for four months, hearing the voices for two weeks. In the first nights they are so vague, that she almost thinks, they're only imagination, but they get louder every night. She positions herself right under the shaft and tries to check out the direction they're coming from. After four days she's sure, that it's the apartment on floor above. She's able to distinguish between a male and a female; the female sounds shy, as if its owner was frightened, the male one infuriated. They seem to be quarreling. Within the eighth night the woman hears things rumbling in the above apartment. Certainly she'd like to go upstairs, to have a look at what's going on, but she does not dare. She's weak and since having been ill during the last two months, she's only recovering slowly. So she stays here, eavesdropping to the hubbub coming through to her. Another few times she hears something like a crack, then a bang, as if slamming a heavy door. Then .... nothing. In the following night it remains silent, the next one as well. As she doesn't hear anything even in te third night she decides to walk upstairs the next day for ringing the doorbell. But the following day again she feels worse: dizzy and she can hardly stand. Evening closes in and the noises come back, louder than they've ever been before. Though she doesn't feel that much better yet, the woman goes upstairs. Slowly taking each step, she's clasping the handrail, to prevent herself from falling. When she reaches the door, she stops, eavesdropping again. The light in the staircase is diffuse and she's not able to find a name tag. The entire house lies in a deadly silence, except behind this door you can hear loud voices. And for the first time even the female's louder. One can easily notice the fear in it, while the male is threatening an squalling unswervingly. Another earpiercing crash is heard and the female voice increases up to a shrill screaming. The woman from the fifth floor braces up and rings the bell. But nothing happens. The doorbell must be broken. There suddenly falls a deep silence behind the door as if somebody quickly turns off the TV. With a shiver she's knocking falteringly. Timidly in the beginning, then more violently. But it remains quiet. Taking a deep breath she presses down the handle. It's not closed. With an eerie creak the door opens. She helds her breath. The lamps on the outside floor don't give enough light to perceive much, but at least she's able to see one thing clearly, one thing, scaring her more than she ever imagined she could be horrified. In front of her there's .... nothing. Absolutey nothing. Just an empty room. Dusted. Cobwebs. And noone seems to be in there, in fact noone seems to have been there during the last years. Bracing up she asks:" Hello? Is somebody in?" Nobody's answering. She enters with her heart thumping at her ribs. BANG!! The door slams with a loud crack and she is standing in the darkness. Listening, not venturing to move. „Hello?" she asks again, „hello?" But nothing. No answer, no noise. No human soul is here, save her. But still she feels a sensation of being watched. Observed by something hiding itself skillfully. Again she stops breathing as she feels something tickling her neck. Assumedly, those are only the cobwebs she tries to persuade herself, but all of a sudden someone grabs her from behind and – „AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!" The girl let out a yell as suddenly out of nothing a hand swished down on her shoulder. „Are you fucking crazy??" she cried, looking at her roommate enraged. „What's up?" the other one asked smirking sneering. „I thought you wanted to listen to the story." „You nearly dislocated my arm when you suddenly grabbed me so brutally!!" she complained, indignantly rubbing the spot. „That's why I cried." „Yeah, for sure and therefore also your face turned white", her friend gave back unimpressed. „Because of the unbearable pain. When did you turn into such a wimp, O'Healy?" The other girl pouted. „The story was totally boring", she asserted, „construed ....illogical and aside from that .... I already knew it. I just didn't remember right away. And if .... stop that silly grinning, will ya?! Alright, I was scared, okay? I almost got a heart attack. You're the perfect horror queen, okay?" Her friend took a bow with an affected smile. „Thanks. And you're the perfect scream queen. What should I call you: rather Jamie or Sidney?" O'Healy grimaced, but then laughed. Her mate looked at the alarm clock at her nighstand. „Doesn't time pass by at all? I can hardly believe: now we've almost grown up and still I can't wait to unpack the presents. And then we weren't even allowed to open one the night before, like the kids do!" 

„Whoa man, _that's_ hard, you nearly killed your best friend just to find out that it's not that much later yet, tsisis." O'Healy slapped her head onto her forehead. „Shit!" it slipped from her mouth.

„Yeah? What a peccant word at such an unchristian time", the other one rebuked her for fun.

„We forgot, to bring down Lucas' and Tom's presents."

„Talkin' 'bout the huge toy-trucks we bought together?"

A nod was the answer. „We wanted them to unpack it together tomorrow. And after watching all that TV-X-mas-nonsense we've forgotten – yeah well, stay in bed, old lady, I'm gonna get them down in the morning, I'm the first one up in any case."

Her friend leaned over to her bed and gave her a big hug and kiss onto the nose. „You're so sweet."

She smirked and sighed: „ The heavy lot of the early risers. It's a curse. Good night." 

****

It was about five o'clock when the girl surnamed O'Healy decided on her way back from the bathroom to bring her brothers's presents down to the living room herself. She didn't switch on the light, what for, after all she knew every single angle in this house inside out. It was her home, her haven, full of memories, familiar odors and noises. Here she was born and grown up and never had left it for more than four weeks running. But it never would have occured to her that she would also find death here. Not here, not such a peaceful morning.

The presents obstructed her sight onto the steps she'd been knwoing for so many years. She could've told which ones creaked and squeaked on her head and which one therefore were better avoided, coming home after a secret party, trying to sneak upstairs unnoticed since having forgotten to leave the bedroom-window open. Those steps, on which her little brothers preferred to leave their entire toys collection and on which from tomorrow on the trucks would also be found, guaranteed. Those steps, that were tidied up each evening by those beloved little chaotics. Those steps on which inexplicably one little toy-car laid, that had been overlooked. She couldn't see it, but when she felt it slipping away under her bare feet, it was already too late. 

The packets slid out of her hands as she tried shaking to grab the handrail, but the weight of the presents had already pulled her forward too far and so she fell, her arms helplessly rowing in the air, behind it, downstairs, until her head hitshe hit hard on the ground. It happened so fast she didn't even have time to scream for help.

The short moment, in which the silence returned into the house as if nothing had happened was the last she lived to see consciously, before her eyes were closed forever. 

Seconds later there was the sound of hurriedly clattered doors heard, being opened in discomposure, and the lamps went on one by one, until the entire house was ablazed with light. 

_*********** _

_*Whoa, took me longer to translate that than I ever would've guessed. Hope that there are no more than 5000 mistakes. But anyway, I'm gonna load it up now, before I go to work. Have a nice time.*_

************

_*Hello and welcome back to the freak show. Sick as I am I even created kinda a private FD - soundtrack. Not that I didn't like the original - I love it - nor that I considered my stuff to deserve to be musically underlaid (phew, can I say so?) , it's just that these songs always cross my mind while working out the fic. _

_For Carter:_

_Nada Surf: _Popular_; Papa Roach: _Last Resort_ (*hello Katey-Kinz, that's your fault :o)) *); Limp Bizkit: _Break Stuff_; Dennis Leary: _Asshole_; Dog Eat Dog: _Sore Loser

_For Clear:_

_Edie Brickell: _Picture Perfect Morning_ (don't ask me why, I can't explain, it's not a likeness, it's how she makes me feel .... (hehe)) ; Ella Fitzgerald/Satchmo: _Summertime_; Aerosmith: _Hole in My Soul_ (if Billy had survived in my story, it would've been his)_

_For Alex:_

_Bif__ Naked: _Lucky_ (*for Fa*); Korn: _Thoughtless_; Die Aerzte: _Ein Song namens Schunder

_For Liz: _

_The entire Filter (Title of Record) - album ; Joe feat. Mariah Carey & Nas: _Thank God I Found You (Make It Last-Remix Edit); _Temple__ of the Dog: _Times of Trouble _(*Fa, Fa*)_

_Just a few more: _

_Him: _Join me_; Faith No More: _Midlife Crisis_; __Nick__Cave__: _There Is a Light_; Don Henley: _New York Minute_; and some by Muse_

_OMG!! Am I pathetic or what?! I can hardly believe that I really put it down. It's so embarrassing .... I'm so sorry. So let's go on with the story.*_

_Paris__, March 1996_

„And? Who's next?"

Alex was horrified by seeing the huge iron scaffold - with the ‚Blue Café 801' neon sign – having been unfastened and now rushing down towards them in an awesome velocity. Carter started speaking again, then his eyes followed Alex' gaze and he slowly began to turn around. All of this seemed to be filmed in slow motion. For a single moment Alex was like paralyzed. Then he unexpectedly kicked into Carter's stomach who writhed down moaning in pain. Alex sat up a little, grabbed his collar and pulled him down to the ground. With an earpiercing screeching the scaffold ground over the asphalt behind them, until it suddenly unexpectedly stopped exactly at that point, Carter had stood only a second ago. Sparks rained down on them and little splinters of glass and iron fell onto the street.

For fractions of seconds there was no noise as if the entire world stood with bated breath. 

Higher above, at the scaffold, a thinner of the diagonal braces had loosened after the crash, and only kept hanging on a single half-destroyed spike. Alex had just started to uprise, as it finally broke. The bar smashed at his chest and his head banged backwards onto the lane. He heard Clear desperately crying his name, before collapsing unconscious. 

Cautiously Carter lifted his head, surmising to hear a familiar voice. It still boomed inside of his ears and his abdomen was damned hurting. _This fucking little wanker!_ Pressing his hand on his paining body his eyes were caught by something big and dark near him. About a half foot away from him, there was a black shadow; the scaffold towering threateningly above his head, as if still considering to fall down within the next moment. He began to understand why it had stopped: if it had been only about two centimetres shorter or less robust it would've smashed them both like an oversized swinging door. A little dizzy he turned around, but recognizing the chaos, his mind was immediately clear again. 

„Alex?"

He jerked round for his friend. Alex laid two metres away from him, not moving. „Alex?" He went along on his knees and since he didn't have time to worry yet, panic now attacked him. His friend's face was terrifying pale with lots of cuts and scratches, and he was heavily bleeding from a wound at the back of his head. „Alex?" He shook him, lightly at first, then, without any reaction, stronger. „C'mon man, not now", he murmured, as his trembling fingers tried to check the pulse, but either he was simply too shocked or – 

„Stop shaking him like like a cocktail, we don't know how severe his injuries are", he heard Clear's strictly voice beside him. With an almost defiant gesture she swept the tears off her face and knelt down beside him. One hand on the ground she realised that there was a sizably big puddle of blood on the asphalt yet. Carter reached over pressing something against Alex' head; only at second glance Clear noticed that it was his expensive sweater. He usually burst out when only a little drop of coke touched it. She gave him an appreciatively smile. 

The usual gawking crowd had sorrounded the place, but some of them fortunately rather decided to help than to gape and some passant having presence of mind must have called the ambulance immediately, because soon the sirens were wailing over the place. Still quite numb, Carter and Clear tried to explain in French, what had actually happened, but on the one hand they could hardly believe it themselves, and on the other all their linguistic knowledge suddenly seemed to have ended in smoke. 

And for the only thing they absolutely knew for sure, they assumedly would've been sent straight to the locked ward in psychiatry. 


	2. Chapter 1

_*Words for the darkside: Dark, thanks for reviewing!! Soo glaaad!! (Still laughin' at Prof. Pro & Sabrebike aka Billman!)*_

_„Ich moechte das Flugzeug verpassen, das dann abstuerzt."_ (I want to miss the plane, that's crashing then.) Xaver Bayer

_March 2003_

It was past eleven'o clock in the evening. Only past eleven? Liz Walker glanced over once more to her alarmclock. 11:07 pm. She checked out wether the battery was in its place, then looked at the clock of her notebook. Seven minutes past eleven, there was no other possibility. Shit. She had decided to work on her university – homework til one o'clock - at least. But she didn't have many good ideas during the last hours. At least nothing related to her term paper. 

Maybe the bathroom needed to be cleaned? No, she did that the day before yesterday. Continuing with the kitchen yesterday. Unfortunately her wardrobe was already tidied up and she was almost never ironing. She shrugged her shoulders, resigning. It was kinda strange which ideas crossed one's mind while trying to chicken out of the actual job. And unlikely more frustrating when nothing was found. Sighing, she dipped another chocolate cookie into her café au lait and bit into it. Baaah, the coffee'd gone cold. She needed to rewarm it urgently. That would pass for an excuse for a little break, wouldn't it?

She scuffled into the kitchen, opened the microwave and put the cup into it. Although she already had drunk up three cups, she didn't feel that much more awake than before. While the machine was gently crooning, she yawned and stretched herself extensively. Maybe some fresh air would benefit. 

She went back to her room and opened the balcony door. It was a calm, starlit night. The sky was deep black and loads of stars were blinking mutely. Which meant, they did not really blink. It was the ‚seeing'. Variations in the air density of the earth atmosphere were accountable for that the direct line of sight was displaced for a few tiny units. (*_I'm sorry, but even in German this is quite difficult to do, and no dictionary wanted to give me the right translations. Anyway, it's not that important. Just to point out the following_.*) That could give the impression that the stars were dancing. What a pity that wasn't valid for the earth as well. From the distance, it surely would've looked funny, such a dancing earth. 

Liz sighed, cuz she basically hated these whiffs of science during such romantic moments. Her last boyfriend had managed to spoil the high spirits in such moments with a terrifying regularity. Midst the only romantic movie they'd gone to see together at all, he had mentioned within the most touching scene – while a big part of the other viewers, being moved to tears, snatched at their napkins – that the camera work in particular plus the plot in general left quite much to be desired. And he didn't say it very low. What didn't make her friends with the others. They rather gave her irritated or compassionate looks. Why did people do that? When she lit a beautifiul candle he didn't care _that_ or _how_ it burned, no, he explained to her _why_. Including all the boring details. Regarding the sundown with a sigh, he lectured about the physical and astronomic datas of the sun and the complexity of the solar system. Up to that day she used to be happy to tell for sure that the moon went round the sun and not vice versa. Self-improvement was one thing and apart from that she was always in favour for it, but now? _Per-lease_. When she had jilted him, everybody was just wondering how she could've born it so long. Must have been her steadfast optimism.

Liz broke away from her negative thoughts and turned around, to reenter the kitchen. 

Her hand already touched the button for opening the microwave, when she felt a light breeze at her naked legs. It seemed to be a little draughty. Her look went automatically to the kitchen window. It was closed. Odd. If it was closed, how could it – She startled as something skimmed along her ankle, but it was only a little leaf, that had been wafted in. Cautiously she moved back to her room and glanced through the open balcony door. The trees didn't move. Otherwise she would've heard them whirring in the silence. She looked back. The leaf laid innocently in the middle of the floor, as if it had followed her secretly, only trying to look innocently. Though her heart was beating like crazy, she had to giggle a bit. A flake like that would hardly try 'n attack her. Nonetheless she kept staying in the middle of the room, not stirring for minutes.

Nothing happened.

Finally her congealment left and she went cautiously through her apartment, but couldn't find anything that could've explained the draft. And it didn't repeat. Probably the coffee had made her a little creepy-crawly. She stopped once more, listening, attentively observing her surroundings. Maybe the vent in the kitchen was to blame for. Sometimes the wind was whistling inside. And a simple, normal, sudden draught wasn't _that_ deviously. 

She picked up the leaf, a maple leaf, and sat down in front of her notebook again. At least she was wide awake and the coffee could stay where it was. A light rustle from the outside made her listen attentively. The sound of leaves when the wind went through, yeah, that was it. With a relieved smile she touched the cursor and turned to her term paper. By now the clocked showed 0:09h. In not quite an alibi-hour she finally could go to bed. 


	3. Chapter 2

_*Okay, here's the next chapter. I edited the whole thing a lil bit, especially changed some dates, cuz otherwise the story wouldn't work the way I wanted it to. Once more thanx to Dark, you're so kind, and I'm still curious to find out more about your sneaking suspicion ;o). Seems as if I was addicted to quotes, hehe, but I found them some days ago and just had to add them. – I hope that 'candy camera' really is what I take it for. Something like a hidden camera? Hopefully. Eerr, that's it for now.* _

_'Live every day as if it were your last and then someday you'll be right.'_ Anonymous

The sun shone brightly through the big windows. Liz yawned and stretched. She hadn't slept very much, but a cold shower and a cup of espresso would do. The strange nightly events were like cancelled from her memory, which actually was even more abnormal, because commonly she didn't forget things like these so quickly. But maybe too many things had happened during the last time. Or not enough.

The memory did not come back until she went into the kitchen, after the shower, to heat her coffee in the microwave, finding the mug with the milky coffee there. But certainly the day was too nice to spoil it with thoughts about things that had irrevocably happened, and which nobody was able to change, so she poured it away, sending her dark thoughts behind. 

****

Though it was quite early, the heat had already covered the city like a huge blanket and the mocking sun shone down on the vast column of cars in the streets. Impatiently Liz drummed her fingers at the steering wheel, staring at the traffic light. That thing was trying to mess around with her? The red light signal had been on for three full hours yet. At least it seemed to her as if. Maybe they were shooting a new episode of 'candy camera'? Ho ho, what a joke! The clock on her dashboard bluntly showed her: she'd inevitably be too late. And she hated being late. Once more. Same course, same curse. It was kinda jinxed: every time something else happened: either her alarm clock was off, though she had set it the evening before. Or she forgot the time chatting on the phone. Or …. yeah, she was stuck in a traffic jam. The professor'd already got used to it. Or probably just gave up hope. At least she wasn't the only one. 

Somewhere in front she noticed relieved that the cars started to move a little faster again. If she turned off to the right into Kennedy Street, there would be a tiny little chance left to reach the university before the class finished. Looking into the rear view mirror she made sure that the way was clear, and just started up as very sudden out of nothing a black sport car appeared, blocked off her way, and then disappeared in Kennedy Street. Just in time Liz was able to put her foot on the brake. She cursed loud and spat loads of oaths at the dark-haired driver. Of course she hadn't been able to make a mental note of the licence plate. That day wasn't made for her and even worse, it only had begun. What a prospect! She shook her head, making a second attempt to turn right and this time no kamikaze-drivers were trying to put obstructions in her way. She winded down her side-window and took a deep breath of warm summer air into her lungs, and with every second her foul mood disappeared and her optimism, that people sometimes had considered to be pathological, gained the upper hand over her again. After all, things could have been worse.

*********

_*Yeah, err, so far. Riddle me this, riddle me that; who's afraid of the big black …. ? Of course you know who it its. Was never meant to be the big mystery. Hope to be able to add more soon and finally finish the long introductory part. Until then …. And, Sherry-Cherry, you know this one's for you :o)*_

It was a beautiful summer's evening. The air was still warmed by the sunbeams of the day and the sky had just started to gradually turn darker, after the every evening, breathtaking nature spectacle: A last blood-red streak constantly refused to leave the dark blue stage. People sat in the cafes and restaurants, often very close to each other, because there were so much more people who liked to enjoy the evening outside than there was space for, but like often there were no problems; the daily stress, the pushing in cramped and badly ventilated trains and busses, the - especially in big cities - inevitable traffic jams, the hustle and bustle, the foolish fight, seeming to be so exceedingly important and burdened only one hour ago, all of that was already over and done with. Here, you liked to move closer together, sharing a table with complete strangers, getting into conversation with them and spending a nice time, summoning up for the next day.

Liz lounged back in her chair, sucking at her cocktail and sighing with pleasure. "A place on a lonely beach, the sound of the lapping of the waves, a few palms is all we need –"

"And Benicio del Toro creaming your back", her friend developed further.

" Oh yeah, please, more of that, more of that", she demanded.

"Forget the sun cream, exchange Benicio del Toro for Orlando Bloom and I'm coming with you", a third young women interfered. "Wearing his pirate fancy dress, oooh yeah, that's it …."

"If it's like that, I'll even take Johnny Depp, who's there in any case", the second girl gave back.

"Oooh sweetie, you're just soooo modest", they teased her. 

"Hey, get out of my dream, down, down!!" Liz complained. "Kindly create your own, will ya!"

"Phew! I bet the sand on your beach was black anyway, wasn't it?"

"Always white is just soooo boooring in the long term", Liz claimed. "Vulcano sand is so unbelievably beautiful. You have no idea of what you're missing!" She shrugged her shoulders, adding sheepishly, "but in my dream it was white."

"You're never too old to play _anywhere but here_, but why do we play it at all?" her friend giggled." We're already doing incredibly well. We're quite ungrateful."

"No Cara, we're not ungrateful." Liz corrected snootily. "We only demand the best. You should stop being content only with the boring average. Let me tell you this."

Her friend wagged her finger in an admonishing gesture and was just about to reply, but then hesitated and grimaced.

"Gotcha", Liz smirked. "I can't believe that after all this years you still fall for that."

"I also believed you", the other one agreed. "You sounded so convincing."

Liz studied her face, but she seemed to be serious. "Really?" She asked, looking unsurely from one to the other. "Hey, c'mon guys, I'm really hurt and offended, I mean, you've been knowing me for ages and I'm none of those bimbos that – _a ha ha_."

"Got_cha_!" they were laughing, pointing at her. "Oh really, though we've been knowing each other for such a long time – "

"Yaddayaddayaddayadda", Liz made laughing. "I need another drink, you really get me down."

The other people at their table were looking at her in amusement. "Those are friends, huh" Liz asked shaking her head. "Tsisisisisis", and the people burst into laughter as well.

_*I know this is a bit stupid, but anyway. Only a few people really know what this is about and since it's for them, don't worry about that silly sequence. The main part is coming up soon. You will get your blood and death, all hell will be let loose, promised. We'll meet again.*_

"Good heavens! How time flies!" Cara put down her pastry fork and wiped her mouth with a napkin. In fact it was quite late. The restaurant had emptied considerably, since many guests had to get up early the following morning. After a short torrential rain and since the terrace was roofless, the remaining people moved inside. 

"Why, do you have planned anything else for tonight?" Jocelyn, the third girl, wanted to know. 

"Lemme think about it, hmm, there is a project I have to give in four days, another one tomorrow, the thesis-paper still wants to be prepared for it, I have to read a play …. no; I'm free. Or don't you agree?" 

"Yes, definitely", they confirmed. "But in case you need help, tell us."

But Jocelyn waved it aside. "I'll just do my stuff whenever I do it: at 5 am. No seriously, gotta go. After all not everybody can have a day off tomorrow."

"Baa baa, we'll remind you on Thursday, when _we_'ll have to get up early and you're still sleeping blissfully", Cara promised. "What's up?"

Joce frowned, holding her mobile into different directions. "I'm not getting a net in here. I wanted to ask Lou to come 'n pick me up."

Cara rummaged in her bag, handing her own cell phone to her, but she shook her head, pointing at the display. "Nice try, but I'm afraid I have to go outside."

"What about yours?" Cara asked Liz about it.

"It's – guess where – at home. I've forgotten to charge the battery."

Jocelyn gave them a wink and then disappeared through the exit. Looking after her Liz just thought how nice it was that the three of them finally had managed to meet, as her look rested on something. Or rather somebody. A few tables away, in one of the niches, two men were sitting, one of them blond, the other one dark haired, with a likewise pretty blonde girl. Her expression darkened. 

" …. hellooo, ground control to Liz", Cara's voice broke into her thoughts. "What's up? Okay, who're we gonna kill, huh? Caught your boyfriend cheatin' on you? Where's the asshole?"

"I've been solo for one and a half months, helloho."

"I know, I know and – thank goodness, thank goodness", she added quickly as the person concerned occurred to her. "Honestly, I still don't get how you –"

"Stop that, will ya?" Liz groaned in an irritating voice, "I just can't stand another comment like _'I told you'_! Besides: only two words: Tommy Tyson, okay?"

"Shhhhhh", her friend made looking round frightened, "somebody could hear you."

Liz took Cara's pastry folk and began to shove the crumbs on her plate to and fro. "Remember what I was telling you this morning?"

"About that guy having suicidal tendencies? Where is he?" She got up, grabbing her knife, a determined expression on her face. "I'll settle that for you."

"Sit down!" Liz pulled her back on her chair. "At the back, on the left, the last niche," she then explained. 

And being the best friend she was, Cara pointedly turned around, looking daggers at him. "May I beat him up a little?" she begged a few seconds later. "Looking piercingly at him's so terribly ineffective."

"Join the end of the queue, honey!"

Cara pouted, but then noticed to her satisfaction, that the young man had turned around, like having felt her staring at his back. Automatically she and Liz put on their coolest faces, watching him disdainfully. He derisively looked back before turning to his companions, pointing behind with a questioning shrug. The two glanced past him and the girl made a comment, seeming to be hilarious for everyone save him. 

"Oh boy, bitch terror! What are we doin' here anyway?" Liz wanted to know. 

"Plotting murder, I thought", her friend replied giggling.

"No seriously, he doesn't even know who we are. The way he tore along the road, he didn't see me at all. Such idiots don't even get it when they're leaving a pile-up including a complete inferno behind."

"Ya know, I've had a few …. drinks, I mean, not pile-ups, so I won't feel awful about it until tomorrow, in any case. So, whatever you're planning: I'm your man – your woman", she corrected chuckling. "You know what I mean. Anyway, what's keeping Joce all of this time?"

Pretending to be unnerved, Liz raised her eyebrows, and made Cara laugh even more when she started to imitate a faked telephone conversation using two different voices. 

_"You come'n pick me up, honey?"_

_From the middle of nowhere, if necessary,darling._

_"Oh, you're soooo sweeeet. I had to think of you the whole day through!"_

_Me too. As well as the night. Could hardly concentrate on working, almost operated on the wrong patient. I'm already at the car, my love, if you want me to, I'll divert you to the headset._

_"No, I don't want to distract you from driving. But you gotta hang up first."_

_No, you._

_"No, you."_

_You._

_"Heehee, no you -"_

"You're missing a friend, don't you?" Cara asked unexpectedly.

Liz let herself fall against her shoulder, moaning "yeaaah."

Her friend took her in her arms. "You know, I really don't begrudge you and Joce being so lucky, but – during summer it's more shit-awful than ever. All those happy couples, this smootching as if there was no tomorrow …. since Mr smart ass left, I didn't really have anything going on. Which wouldn't be that bad if there had been something real before. I'm getting the idea I was only …. like desperated enough, ya know? And especially that I wanted to avoid. I'm not that type of woman, that's only able to define herself over a man. But my last relationship with Raoul has definitely been too long ago. Okay, I still have him as a best friend. Who has moved to Spain. _My_ dreamland. With his new girlfriend. Which is pregnant now. – Oh, I'm sorry, guess I should lay off the cocktails right now." Though she didn't drink very often, she was able to hold her drink, but as a sideeffect she started to become uncommonly talkative. "_In vino veritas_. Gimme something to drink and I'll tell you everything you want to know." She grimaced. "And even what you don't wanna know. Above all things _that_." Sorry, I didn't wanna spoil the whole atmosphere with my a gloomy crap. I'll just shut up."

"Nonsense", Cara said resolutely, her eyes following the dark haired guy, that had just come back from the men's restroom. In passing he glanced at her contemptuously, not deigning to look at her any further. 

"Besides, there are worse people. Just imagine, you would've come across _him_." 

Liz sat up jerkily, making a shocked sound. "If I ever do that, please call a priest as well as an exorcist!"

"I thought you wouldn't believe in the church."

"I don't", she answered shrugging, "but I supposed I'd be willing to start then."

******

In the meantime they had said good-bye to Jocelyn, declining with thanks Lou's friendly offer to give them a lift home, too. None of them wanted to go already. They would've preferred to stay in this cosy restaurant until the break of dawn. The room had almost completely emptied, just this moment another family was paying. Involuntarily Liz had to think of a satire by Kishon. 

_*Talking about the one in the expensive French 'etablissement', where some theatre guests were dining. If you dunno it, read it! It's damned funny!*_

Loud yelling interrupted her thoughts. Two boys were chasing each other round the tables, while their parents admonished them to be quiet, of course without succeeding. Both children were a bit hyped up, in consideration of their age and time, that seemed to be far beyond their usual bedtime, it wasn't surprising. Finally their parents gave up. 

Liz watched them. Her cousins used to be the same type of chaotics. She sighed silently, discovering that thinking of them didn't hurt that much recently. Though it would never stop completely. 

"See the ribbons?" the elder one asked his brother. Liz eyes followed his stretched out arm, as he was pointing at one of the lanterns. It was made of fragile red paper, seeming to be Chinese in origin. But this was a Spanish restaurant. Nonetheless they just perfectly matched with the Mediterranean fittings, a perfect mix of styles. 

The other boy let the ribbons, which as a whole looked similar to a cut off cord, slide through his fingers, one after the other, before stepping out onto the terrace and disappearing out of her field of vision. Liz looked at the lantern with a dreamy smile. The front part of the threads was only half as long as the rear one. She glanced around the room. The trio in the back also was still there. Two of the waiters stood behind the bar, polishing glasses and flatware for the next day. They looked tired and Liz decided on leaving slowly but surely. One didn't have to overdo. Her look was attracted by the ribbons again. She watched them, slowly swinging to and fro in a light summer breeze, blowing in through the open terrace door. Something – 

She hesitated, her smile gradually dying away. She turned to the side, seeing the remaining guests, taking a quick look over the room, searching for a clue about her strange feeling. Usually being worried not to find one, she now was considerably more disturbed about the fact, that she found several. These ribbons …. She knew them from somewhere. But today she was here for the first time. Presumably she had simply seen such a lantern before. 

Those two boys. 

And suddenly it became so apparent as if she was watching a movie. One of the waiters dropped a glass and went to the kitchen to get a shovel. The girl from the back niche stood up to go into the restroom. Cara ran her forefinger along the rim of her wine glass, creating a high, plaintive sound. The waiter returned through the swing door, looking down on the ground, lost in thoughts, so he almost collides with the blonde girl. He apologized and both of them were laughing cheerfully, before they went on their ways. The two young men – 

A hand was placed onto her shoulder and she jerked round. "Hey, do you ignore me intentionally or – hey, calm down, I don't bite!" Cara gave her a worried look. "What's up? You're okay? Do you feel sick? Liz, I'm talking to you! Geeze, you're as white as snow!"

"It's summer", she replied absent-minded. 

"Oh cool, a joke, so you're fine", Cara said relieved, then following her eyes. "Think the waiter to be cute? Would explain why you're staring at him constantly. Hey Liz, _this_ is where it's at!" She waved her hand in front of her face, then turning it round to herself. "_What's wrong_?"

Out of the corner of her eye she realized the dark-haired turning back to his friends, pointing at her again and showing with a corresponding gesture that he had considered her to be crazy. The blond one hesitantly looked from her to him. Then slowly shook his head. 

From the right she heard a short, high tinkle. Her head spun around, hoping not to see what she knew would inevitably happen. The waiter smirked at his colleague, her tapping on his shoulder, before he went over to the kitchen. Liz glanced over to the niche where the girl had just got up, slipping past her friends. She could've told the next moments in her sleep, which didn't shock her as much as the fact that she also knew what would happen after _that_. 

She jumped up and grabbed hold of Cara's wrist. 

"Jesus Liz, tell me what's up, will ya?!"

The waitress stared at them. "You're using a gas cooker in here?" Liz tried to suppress the panic in her voice. 

The woman shrugged her shoulders uncomprehendingly. "Yeah, of course. Why?"

"Out", Liz said determined. "OUT!! THE ENTIRE RESTAURANT IS GONNA EXPLODE!!"

Out of the kitchen the cook, as well as another man, dressed up in a dark suit and obviously being the manager, came running up. In the face of the completely distraught girl he did without any polite phrases. "I'm the manager, what happened?"

"The lady's obviously -" the waitress began. 

"Don't you get it?? THE WHOLE SHIT IS BLOWING UP!!" She looked at them, one after the other – but she didn't notice the disbelieving expression on dark haired's face as he heard her words - while drawing Cara with herself towards the exit. "Listen, I know what it sounds like, but I'm not crazy!! Believe me or else you gonna bite the dust."

The manager scrutinized her full of mistrust. She was aware of the fact, that she behaved like a mentally disturbed person. The cook, having assured, that everything in his kitchen was in perfectly order, stepped beside him, shaking his head. "How do you –"

"I JUST KNOW!! Okay, we're out."

Pushing her girlfriend outside, she looked back once more imploring. "Come with us. Please."

The blond girl stared at her from a distance, then glancing at her friends. As if there was existing an invisible bond between them, the blond guy got up without saying a word, dragging the reluctant dark haired forward. For two seconds he stared at Liz pensively, before saying calm, but audible for everyone : "Maybe you better should believe her."

"What kinda a silly game is this??" the cook shouted. "In case this is a trick to avoid paying the bill –"

The blond one digged in his shirt-pocket, putting down a few notes on one of the tables, before finally following his friends outside. "Alright, there's no use in staying any longer. I cannot force you to believe her."

"Thanks, we're able to take the piss out of ourselves", the kitchen-chief grouched. He was dead tired and just wanted to go home. 

"Do you consider the possibility to be the victim of a joke to be so much more important than losing your life?" the blonde girl interfered. 

"FUCKING SHIT; MOVE YOUR ASS OUTTA –" Liz cried infuriated, but her words were abruptly interrupted by an earpiercing bang. She had just started to reenter the restaurant when she was pulled back. Without knowing where to, her and Cara were running across the market place in front of them. Another explosion rent the nightly peacefulness. She heard screams from behind and jerked round. Her eyes dilated in terror. A huge cloud of fire broke through the entrance rearing up hissing enraged, now uniting with the other flames shooting into the nightly sky. Where they had sat only a few minutes ago, a terrible scene met their eyes, the picture of an atrocious blazing inferno. Her first intention was to run back, but a dreadful feeling kept her back; she _knew_ there was nothing more that could be done. Cara stared back like paralysed before slowly turning to her friend. "Liz –" she began, feeling unsafe, but she didn't finish asking the question that was preying on her mind. Instead of she drew her trembling friend towards herself, to calm her. "I've seen it, Ca, I've seen it", she stammered out as the tears ran down her face. She buried her head in Cara's shoulder. She didn't want to see what was happening, wanted to banish the cruel picture from her memory. But the pungent smell of burning, seeming to use up all the oxygen, forcing its way into their lungs, and forcing their attention. She raised her had and blinked through a veil of tears. The flames were licking high into the night black sky, as if competing with each other in a perverted way. Spread out over the square there were parts of the fittings; chairs, parasols, tables, all of it destroyed and charred. And she did not want to know in the slightest what exactly all those things burnt least beyond recognition once had been, indistinctly reminding her of – she shook her head to drive away these thoughts. She was far too shocked to notice the looks the others gave her, staring at her mutely. In the distance the first sirens could be heard and the inevitable gaping crowd had already begun to draw up. 

"Shit, you really could've skipped paying."

A little disconcerted Alex looked at Carter, but didn't reply anything, unlike Clear:" Though we've been knowing each other for such a long time, again and again I'm surprised how cold you can be."

"What do you want? Shall I break down crying? Would that change _anything_?"

"People just _died_ in there, in case you failed to notice."

"And? They're dead, I can't do anything about it. They didn't wanna listen to the girl. That's just the way it is."

"I got used to the fact that there's no brain up there, but", tapping at his chest, she added, "that there's nothing underneath the ice-layer –"

Carter shrugged. "Yeah well, unfortunately you're never gonna find out."

Casually Clear looked past him. "How did Terry cope with it anyway?"

"Keep Terry out of this!" he snubbed, taking a threatening step towards her. 

"Okay, that's enough!" Alex who had just listened quietly up to that moment, determined positioned himself right between them. 

"Yeah, stand up for", Carter mocked him, "try 'n protect her from a fate catching us anyway sooner or later."

"You're _in front_ of the restaurant, aren't you?"

"Browning, still didn't get anything? _After_ the explosion is _before_ the explosion. It's just a question of time. – Shit, where did they go to??"

"What?" Clear wanted to know uncomprehendingly. 

"Man, the two girls, dorkhead!" Peeved he raised his hands heavenwards. "Damn, that's just great: that means _we_'re the ones that are gonna get examined. _Super_!!" He imitated Clear's voice: "_Oh please, let's go that little Spanish restaurant over there, it's just soooo sweet_! Oh yeah", pointing at the ruin in the background, "_really sweet_!!"

Clear was about to give a furious reply, when two uniformed police officers stepped up to them. Pointing at them, he gave her a fake smile. "See? Got that gift as well." 


	4. Chapter 3

"You smoke?" Miguel asked, raising his eyebrows in astonishment. 

For a second Liz just stared at him, then smiled. It was her break, two days after the explosion and she was sitting at one of the tables in another restaurant, she was working at. There were almost no guests there, though it was already past noon, but due to the fact that it was quite hot, many of them seemed to have made use of their free time, to go bathing or else. "What does it look like?"

He smirked. "Can I have one?"

"Actually .... this _is_ one of yours .... the box lay here and I thought .... you wouldn't mind, 'cuz you always -"

"Hey, hey, calm down, it's alright, I'm not gonna call the cops or stuff." He looked at her concerned. "You're okay?"

"Yeah, of course, I'm fine, don't worry"; she answered a little bit too quickly, forcing herself to keep smiling.

"Aha", Miguel made, only half convinced, but realising that there was no use in questioning her any further, so he took a seat beside her, holding his face into the sun. "Oooh that's life, ain't it? Getting paid for sitting around." He closed his eyes. Liz didn't dare to do as well, because she knew too good what would happen then, so she just took another long drag, letting the smoke flow out through her nose. She didn't smoke much, all in all less than one box a year, so the strong cigarette dizzied her a little. A shadow fell over the table as somebody stepped beside her. "Liz?" She looked up, into the eyes of a colleague, smiling friendly at her. 

"You need help?"

The girl grimaced. "Oh yeah, please help me, 'cuz I cannot manage to serve this mass of people in here. No - it's just - there are some guys, saying they were friends of yours, looking for ya." 

Liz turned around to see who she was talking about but couldn't find any familiar faces, until - her smile started to disappear. A few metres away from her three people were standing, three people she had hoped never to see again. They stared back at her in silence 'til the dark-haired young man started to walk towards her, slowly followed by the others. "We need to talk", he demanded coldly, looking down at her. "Alone", he added. 

"Do we?" she gave back. 

"Okay, I'm out", Miguel grinned at her, glancing disdainfully at the dark-haired. "You sure I can leave you alone with them?"

"Guess so."

"Your friends like to drink something?"

"They aren't my friends and no, cuz they won't stay very long."

"Coke for me", the dark one said, sitting down. The girl just rolled her eyes as she and the other young man sat down beside him. Miguel went away laughing. 

Liz folded her arms and leant back. "So?"

"_So_??" The dark-haired spat aggressively. "We spent fuckin' three hours at a police office answering stupid questions cuz some freakin' jerks didn't show up to -"

"Shut up, Carter", the girl interrupted him, giving Liz an excusing smile. "I have to apologize for him. At first: my name's Clear, this is Alex and Mr Daredevil over here is Carter and he's right, we really need to talk. I'm sure you remember us. It took us two days to find out who and where you are, but we finally managed."

"Listen, I'm really sorry that the whole thing caused you so many problems, and that you weren't able to escape the police interrogation as well, but I don't see -"

"C'mon Liz, you know it's not that simple", Alex interfered for the first time. 

"You know my name?" she asked not being very witty. They had surely heard it in the restaurant.

"We found you, didn't we?" 

Liz shrugged her shoulders. "So?" she repeated.

"You could've predicted it, couldn't you?" Clear continued hastily as she noticed Carter taking a deep, angry breath. "You had something like a premonition." 

Liz remained quiet for a while, thousands of thoughts running through her mind. What the hell was all of that about? Why did they have to find her? She had had a pretty hard time during the last two days and everything had been welcome to distract. She had worked a double shift to become too tired to be able to think about the whole incident, but on the other hand she had drunk lots of coffee to stay awake because she was afraid of falling asleep. The chance of not being able to wake up from a nightmare scared her. She tried hard not to think, not to let her mind reach those secret areas, pass the doors she had closed and locked such a long time ago. 

"Liz?" a voice broke softly into her thoughts. 

She looked up, into a pair of gentle blue eyes. "I didn't want that", was all she could say. 

"Of course not", Clear responded with a comforting voice. 

Carter put down his glass which Miguel must have served within the last time - Liz couldn't have told when - and stared at her in disbelief. "I can't believe you did that!!"

"Carter, why don't you just -"

"Oooh, found a new best friend, Browning? A soulmate?" Carter asked in a mocking tone. 

"Fuck you."

"Fuck _you_, Browning, first you 'n now her!! What is this? A fuckin' conspiracy of the clairvoyants? Club of freaks? Fright Night Special?? I'm really sick of it!! I knew hangin' 'round with you two would get me nothing but problems!! But ya know what? Not this time! Not with me, thanks! I'm not gonna go through this once more!!" 

"So whatcha wanna do, huh? Sit and wait for death to come 'n get you? Great idea, Horton!" Alex snorted despicably. 

"Sounds like one to me."

"Why don't you just buy some JD as usual, get yourself drunk and wait for the others to do all the work?"

"Calling me a damned sot??" Infuriated Carter jumped up and seized him by the collar.

"STOP IT!" Clear yelled. "_Both of you!! Immediately!!_" 

Liz felt somebody staring at her back and turned around to see Miguel and two other waiters giving her worried looks. She shook her head to show that everything was okay. 

"What the hell are you talking about at all?" she then turned to Carter, who obviously refused to give her an explanation, instead he gave her a furious look - that a girl from Mt. Abraham High School, DARK, now being a famous author, had once perfectly termed as *The Death Scowl*, which also was the title of her first best-selling novel. By now she's living happily in a huge old castle in Scotland, which she's sharing with some wherewolves and other creatures of the dark - and crossed his arms. 

~_What a baby_~ she thought. 

"You ever heard of a plane crash, 'bout seven years ago, flight 180 to Paris?" Alex wanted to know, studying her face while waiting for an answer. 

She thought for a moment, then nodded. "Yeah, it as all over primetime news for weeks. "Followed by reports about some of the, I don't remember how many, survivors dying one after the other, afterwards. Committing suicide, accidents 'n stuff -" she hesitated, " you're not trying to tell me it was you, do you?" 

"We were seven", Alex confirmed. 

"I'm .... afraid I still don't see a connection ...."

"SHIT, YOU are the connection! It's all your fault, hope you're proud of yourself!!" Carter snapped. "I should've known. The way you and your friend were staring at me in the restaurant -"

"What exactly is his problem?" She pointed at him, now becoming quite angry herself. 

"YOU _are my fuckin' problem_!!!!" Carter exploded. 

"Will you shut the fuck up?!" Alex shouted at him. "This is leading nowhere, can't you see?? And your outbursts aren't very helpful! We already had that, didn't we? It's no one's _fault_, okay? It just _happened_! Like the crash! And if we want to stay alive, we - you know what to do."

"Oh yeah, you're right, I'm sorry", Carter answered in a suspiciously calm tone. "After all, we know who _really_ started it."

"CARTER!!" Clear reprimanded him.

"What's up, honey?" he hissed with an evil grin. "Accusing me for telling the truth? C'mon, tell me I'm wrong, though I'm quite sure you can't!"

"Look into my eyes and tell me that the past seven years were so damned unbearable for you that you _still_ wish you would've stayed on the plane." She took a deep breath. "We _beat_ it. So don't you try to tell me that the only reason you stayed alive for was to keep us alive. That argument doesn't work." ~_And concerning you, we all know that id never did that well_.~

The young man didn't answer. He knew she had a point there. Fuck it. The truth was, that it infuriated him even more that he didn't reply anything. But it was too late now. 

_*Yeah well, a lot of F-words, but I'm not ashamed at all. Bad girl, huh? Seems as if Alex starts to become a really reserved person. Always the last one to speak. Not sure, where this is leading to, if it's leading anywhere ….* _

_*Geeze, I've forgotten some lines. Lookin' at the last chapter it suddenly seemed to be shorter than my original. No, really talkin' 'bout only three lines during the explosion part. Embarrassing (gives a slight cough). DARK: big mental hug (if one can say so)!!*_

Liz stared at the three. She didn't get that. Usually it was kinda jinxed. Well actually this time it was as well. As empty as the restaurant might have been before, whenever one of her friends dropped by to chat a little, suddenly thousands of people – seeming to have waited outside for exactly that moment – came rushing in and left the restaurant only a few seconds after her friends had left. Where the hell were all of these people right now?? She didn't want to talk to these three. She had come here to _work_. To _distract_. Not to _talk about it_. 

"So you guys are tryin' to tell me that there is a connection between the explosion and the crash or what?" 

"Sounds like a bad joke to you, huh? Yeah, I know, but fact is, we –" Alex hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't know how to explain it, but for a second he was wondering - what if they were wrong? If they were mistaken this time? If they were supposed to get out? It had left them alone for so long now. Why should it start again? Maybe a few weeks later, a few months, but seven whole years?? Wasn't that a bit too long for an eternal creature? If it really had wanted to, wouldn't it have already started new attempts to finish off his strange and freaky plan? 

"Yo freak!" Carter impatiently waved his hand in front of his face. "Get out of wonderland, okay? You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, huh? Face reality! We're just right back in the whole shit again!"

"I thought you refused to do anything?" 

"You're so full of shit, Browning!"

"Guys?" Clear tried to achieve their attention. 

"Yeah, ya know I know, cuz you keep tellin' me everyday." 

"Hey! Guys!!"

They finally listened to her. "_Thank you_. Could you stop that? I'm really sorry to interrupt your private little conversation, but, tell me if I'm wrong, I suppose this is a little too serious." She turned to Liz, who was still trying to wake up from the weird dream this had to be. "I'm gonna try to make this as easy as possible, okay?" Liz nodded like a good girl the nurse had promised to give some candies to when she behaved well while getting an injection. "You know best what happened before the explosion. Call it whatever you want, you _knew_ it _before_. So of course you tried 'n save people. Seven years ago, before the plane crashed, Alex foresaw it, too. So some friends of us and we were able to get out. But we really infuriated something. Death wouldn't let us go. It took one after the other, until we finally beat it, or so we hoped. Of course we _can_ be wrong, it _could_ be different this time, but I've seen too much of it to lull us into a false sense of security. That's the story so far."

Liz took a deep breath. "Pheeeew, okay. So you tell that me my life's just turned into a scary movie, I might not survive the next hours or – if I'm lucky – days and that everybody else that hasn't _already_ died surely _will_."

"Smart girl", Carter derided her, "you got it pretty well." 

"Just fuckin' leave me alone", she snapped at him. "This is just not true! Okay, where's the camera? Hellooo!!" She waved her hand grimacing, before continuing, "Listen, I'm still really sorry for whatever was my fault, but that's it for me. I don't believe in the big bad evil like you do, neither in any kind of predetermined fate nor an infinite plan. I don't even believe in God. And since some of us have other things to do than run around 'n try to frighten people –"

"Of course you don't believe us by now. Anyway, it won't start that fast" Alex said calmly.

"I surely never will. See, I'm sure you are - at least two of you – nice people and out of some reason I really believe you, that it had happened to _you_, because I couldn't think of any other explanation to account for all those strange deaths, but …. just _no_, okay? Sorry, my break's over, don't worry bout the Coke, this one's on me, keep an eye on yourselves, have a nice life, _bye_." Without any further word she got up and left them. 

"Great work, Browning!" Carter ridiculed him as they stood up. 

"Give her some time okay? I remember a special person that wasn't so willing to believe, either."

Carter leant forward, a wicked grin on his lips. "Yeah, _cuz I know_ you are a freak! You were born as one, you will die as one." 

Alex returned the grin, quoting something, Carter had said years ago: " _'As far as I know, this shit can circle around and get us all again. But for right now I'm the safest fucker in the world, because you're still NEXT!'_ "

"What the hell are you talkin' bout, you loser?"

Alex' grin became somewhat more evil: "Didn't you pay attention in class? _This time it's your go first._"


	5. Chapter 6

_*Cheap thrills, huh? lol Quite pathetic, I know. Oh, and the quote is taken from Abel Ferrara's _The Addiction_, though I wished it was mine.*_

_"He had decided to live forever or die in the attempt."_ J. Heller 

"What's up?" Alex wanted to know. "_What_?" he repeated, seeing the horrified expression on his friend's face. Clear put down the receiver to take a look at the display. Since the line had been disconnected a few seconds ago she was desperately trying to make a connection again, but didn't succeed. "It's been cut off suddenly!"

"Cut off?"

"Interrupted. Liz said they had sorta an accident, dunno whether they're hurt or not, I could hear Carter screaming, then something like a terrible crack –" she made a gesture with her hand, like drawing a final stroke. She looked into Alex's eyes, searching for an answer she probably didn't want to hear. "Didn't you see anything?"

The blond-haired shook his head, worrying, wondering. Glancing over the room. Outside the rain swooshed down, pounding against the windows, sounding like a big ogre's heart, beating fast while waiting in anticipation to attack its victims anytime. There was nothing, nothing that could've told him what was going to happen. No hint. And therefore, no premonition. 

Clear reached for her jacket. "We should go out and search for them. Liz got our cell-numbers, she will surely try them and so can we, so we don't have to stay here to –"

"Clear, hey", Alex softly cut off, pulling her back. "We don't even have the slightest idea, where they could be. You know I'd be the first to run out there with you, but we cannot comb the whole city and the surrounding places. We wouldn't be able to see anything during this Flood." 

She knew he had a point there, but only thinking of being locked in here, while their friends needed their help badly or maybe even were dead, made her crazy. Alex took his own phone out and dialled. "Police", he explained, though he wasn't very confident that they could or would do anything. Clear walked around the room, continuously pressing the repeat key, always listening to the same nine words -_"The person you have called is temporarily not available."_- becoming each time more desperate, but refusing to give up hope to reach them. 

None of them had noticed the little thing that had fallen under Liz' desk. It was a paperback book about the films of David Cronenberg, having a picture of his famous 1996 - movie at the cover. 

**********

The black car was in terrible condition. Loads of deep scratches and bumps had destroyed the gleaming metal. The windshield had been broken by an enormous tree, part of its treetop now lying in the front of the car, some rainwater dropping onto the seats. 

Clear had had a hard struggle, trying to get out of her seat, the branches and twigs had nearly nailed her on. This was a nightmare. Somebody had to wake her up. She looked down. Her formerly white jeans were soiled from a mixture of dirt, water and blood. Especially blood. Due to the fact that it was pretty cramped in the back, Carter had to lay down his injured leg across hers, for he was not able to bend his knee. The mobile had been completely destroyed by one of the branches and Liz still couldn't understand that it hadn't shattered her hand as well. 

"Hey!" Carter suddenly cried, making her start. "What about _your_ fuckin' cell?"

Liz turned to him in slow motion, eying him in disbelief. "Well, as you might know it's still lying on the ground of some canal, since somebody threw it into a few days ago." The calmness in her voice was apparently a bit forced. She could remember the scene vividly. Carter had just started to take it out on them again, since he had forgotten his mobile at home and hers wasn't working the way he wanted it to, when he suddenly reached back and furiously swung it into the dirty water of the canal they were standing close to. Liz had nearly thrown him behind, but unfortunately Clear and Alex prevented her from doing so, though being damned angry at his behaviour themselves. 

"Oops", he made. "Yeah, guess I've forgotten to replace it."

"_Replace_ it?? There were messages I never ever wanted to delete, especially the last one Cara sent to me, furthermore it was a birthday present and meant a lot to me – but nevertheless you _will_ buy a new one, don't worry."

"If we get outta here. Man, will that fuckin' rain never stop??" He let out an impatient groan. 

"We really should get out of the car. I've had enough of being stuck here with you."

"Yeah", he made an inviting gesture, "just go ahead, I won't hold you back. I'll just stay here where it's safe and warm, waiting for you to return. Oh yeah 'n hey: don't mind a family of bears crossing your way or maybe some wild pigs. Round that time they usually aren't hungry." 

"Oh, that's just great!! You got us down here, we were nearly killed, and now we're not having the slightest idea of where we are nor how to get back home, but Mr smart ass still takes it for a joke!! Ya know what?? As long as you don't come up with something useful, why don't you just shut your trap?!"

"So, Miss big mouth, why don't _you_ just tell me then?? C'mon, lemme listen to your great plans!" Carter snapped, giving a wince of pain the next second as Liz dropped her hands in resignation, not thinking about his leg. 

"_So_ sorry", she growled. 

"_Bet you are_! _So_? Still wanna play the scout?"

The only thing she wanted was to get out of here, away from this idiot. But it was useless and she knew it. The rain was still drumming ceaselessly strong against the car. For the short time single flashes had lit up the surrounding area, they had seen that they were deep within the woods and one must have gone absolutely crazy to try to find a way home with all the flashes striking into the ground and the trees and without any torch or local knowledge. 

"Hope we not gonna end up like Spooky Mulder and Scully, spending a whole night outside on a platform just to find out that the shore was so close they could've walked to it." 

Liz raised an eyebrow. "_You_'re watching the 'X-Files'?"

"Well, everybody does."

"Just thought it was too freaky for such a _cool_ guy like you!"

He smirked. "I know you'd like to see me dead." 

"_Oh per-lease_, you're not _that_ important, okay? I ain't got any feelings towards you, you're only getting on my nerves. Which is a state of mind." Something came to her. "Was that …. like …. Does it mean, Clear's next?"

Carter gulped, then behaved as cool as usual. "Guess so."

"We gotta warn her!"

"You got any telepathic abilities I should know about? Calm down okay? They have to fear the worst, so Alex 's gonna keep an eye on her. Or both." He grinned at his own silly joke, before starting to glance over the car, apparently searching for something. He finally reached under his frontseat, unearthing a black and blue sweater and something that looked liked a bottle. Liz refused to believe what she saw. "You're not gonna drink that now?!"

He gave a hard, arrogant laugh. "Who's gonna stop me? _You_?" His eyes got an icy-cold expression. "Touch the bottle and you're dead, no matter whose turn it's next. Seriously, what else can we do? We're stuck in here, it doesn't seem as if the thunderstorm stops so soon, the car's damaged so driving's out of sight – not much left."

"Oh, so you got another meeting with one of your three best friends - wait, what were they called; Jack, Jim and Johnnie?" she asked sarcastically. 

"Fuck you", Carter answered, taking a deep swig. 

"How can one drink whisky at all?" Only imagining it made her shiver. That was even worse than liquorice or ravioli. Or bitter chocolate.. _Eek_. 

"I bet you're drinkin' such candy-ass-crap like _Bailey's_, don't you?" he questioned her condescendingly. 

"And _if_?" she wanted to know with an unnerved sigh. This macho-behaviour started putting her under stress. 

"Which is _no_ whisky, huh?" Noticing the expression on her face with a half-hearted smirk, he drank more. 

"Someone said: '_We drink to escape the fact we're alcoholics. Existence is the search for relief from our habit, and our habit is the only relief we can find.' _"

" A capable person. But I'm no alcoholic."

"_Oh no, I don't drink, man_",she mocked him, "_I don't take drugs as well. I can stop it anytime I want to. I just _don't_ want to._" 

"Go to hell", he snorted, drinking even more. 

"Already been there. You're repeating yourself, Carter. Just think of something new, for a change."

"What for? I'm not your private entertainer."

"My God, was that a joke? If there's nothing funny on TV the next days , I'll maybe remember it and laugh a bit." 

"Wow, you're just _so cool_. Why do you keep on prattling on things you don't understand? It really starts getting on one's wick, in the long term."

Liz stared out of the window. There was big flash of lightning, only a few meters away from them. "This velvet-soft feeling, that's the best. As if walking in the clouds. A pleasant dizziness. And everything seems to be so easy. You drink to forget your problems. And even if you don't manage, it doesn't matter, cause everything's suddenly so simple. Because nothing seems to be important any more. Finally you can float off of everything. Only the next day, there's this strange feeling waiting for you. Every time. This dissatisfaction, you can't tell for sure, where it's coming from. This restlessness, stirring you inward, which you cannot seem to fight. Screwing up your stomach, making you slowly but surely going mad, but you calm yourself, because soon you won't have to worry about that any longer. But you hate this feeling, inevitably coming, when you, one or two hours after having fallen asleep blissfully, wake up in the middle of the night; you could drink now twice as much, but this nice feeling is gone and it's not coming back, no matter what you do. And the next day you have to swig down much more and especially high-proof stuff, when it shall be like the night before. Meanwhile you've also checked out which stuff's only getting you a nasty headache, but you accept even that, if your purse's not allowing anything else. Though your mind's making it absolutely clear to you how stupid you are, you're sweeping away those objections, cuz you got it under control. And you're not only saying so, it really seems to be right. After all you can do without for weeks sometimes, without noticing the slightest withdrawal symptoms. So you can just keep on doing it, whenever you want."

Carter let the golden brown liquid circle in the bottle, before gulping down more. "Sounds as if you were talking about an old friend." He seemed a little astonished. "Though not a very good one."

"I think I've already overstepped the point, where I could've told you, I'd read this somewhere." She was angry with herself. Why couldn't she just shut up? Excellent, now he even thought her a boozer. She tried to make herself believe that she didn't give a damn at what he thought.

_*TXL, DARK!! lol Seems as if I liked Carter more than I'd ever thought possible, huh?*_

Carter studied her face. "You sure, you don't want some?" He held out the bottle to her, but she shook her head. "Cuz you already look a little freezing 'n I suppose it's gonna get even colder down here."

Liz raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to make me drunk?"

He smirked derisively. "What for? To make it easier for me to screw you?" He leant forward and she could feel his breath on the skin of her face. "I don't have to get a girl sloshed to do it with her, believe me", he said in a low voice, a little husky from the JD – _(*and that goes out to you, Dark*_) some German dubbing artist would've given anything to call this voice his own – looking her right into the eyes. "Never had to." And, lounging back with a self-satisfied expression, he took another swig of whiskey. 

"I see, _you_ have to get pickled instead."

"You won't provoke me. Hey, it can't get worse: I almost died twice that night, my car's got a write-off, I'm stuck here with _you_, my knee hurts – well I guess that's basically it. But I'm still alive, _cheers_!" By now the initially three-quarters-filled bottle, only contained about one last quarter. Carter lay his head at the back rest. "And you should be happy as well. Nice scenery, cool company, okay, no music, but fresh air, the wood so close to you that you can even touch the leaves –"

Only after a few seconds Liz realised that he had suddenly cut off. She turned her head to see what happened, then tried to suppress a giggle. Carter had closed his eyes, a peaceful expression on his face, and snored slightly, holding the bottle in his arms like a teddy bear. 

_*Well okay, I've sorta overdone that. Gonna stop it here. Have to shorten my dialogues, I guess. I can never let them stop talking and talking and talking. lol Like me. O . O (hope I was allowed to borrow that from you, Dark, if not, I will clear it immediately.)*_

******

Liz coughed and sneezed for the 284th time this morning. 

"I told you to have some whisky, but you just wouldn't listen", Carter said cheerfully for the 312th time, sounding like a senior primary school teacher. 

"It's just a bit of hay fever", she said talking through her nose and sneezing once more. It had become damned cold during the night and Carter's sweater hadn't helped much since it was made for summer. She still wondered how it could've protected the whisky bottle from breaking. 

Two forestry officials had found them only three hours ago, by a pure fluke, trying to check out what damages the thunderstorm had caused in the woods. Alex and Liz, unspeakably relieved to see them alive, had picked them up at the hospital, the forestry officials had brought them to for a check through. Carter's knee wasn't seriously injured, so they could've left soon. 

"'Popular' by _Nada Surf_ was made especially for you, huh?" Liz groaned at him, ill-humoured. "At least the chorus."

"_Nerda_ who?" he asked, pretending to be bored, though knowing pretty well what she was alluding to and it really annoyed him, but he begrudged her the satisfaction.

She shrugged. "Why doesn't it surprise me that you have no idea of good music?"

Behind the newspaper Alex was reading, a slight chortle was heard. Carter gave him an if-looks-could-kill-one. The paper rustled audibly as Alex folded it up, while trying to regain control of his features. 

"Ah, fuck you!" Carter yelled, turning like lightning into the well-known aggressive jock, grabbed his jacket and marched, eerr, hobbled out of the room furiously, straight into Clear who was returning from the kitchen, entering the very same moment. "Don't stand in the way!!" he snubbed her. 

"Hey, what –" she was incensed, but he had already disappeared around the corner and the door leading to the stairwell banged at the wall with rattling panes. 

"What is it _now_??" She stepped into room, glancing around wondering. 

"'Popular' by _Nada Surf_", Alex smirked. 

Clear frowned for a moment, then grinning as well. "Bad girl", she turned to Liz, for it was quite obvious from whom it had come, but her just shrugged. "He might be your friends a thousand times, but I cannot bear his arrogant fuss no more. What an asshole!! If he goes on like this, I personally will finish off the work of –" she stopped abruptly, taking a deep breath. 

"I guess it's not very easy for him", Clear made an attempt to explain. 

"Ah well, but for us it is, huh?" Liz mocked. 

"What I'm trying to say is …. that Carter is his own worst enemy. I suppose that it's somehow harder for him than for us", she continued, without caring about the sceptic looks Liz gave her. "I - we are at least able to _talk_ about the whole thing, while Carter's keeping it all inside. It's always been like that; just don't let anything come through, that could cause fissures in the façade, keep it under lock and key; it's gonna sort itself out somehow. He just cannot stand the fact that there's something he's unable to solve or at least ignore. Which is the way he used to handle things. His whole life through. Until the crash everything was alright. He had control over it. Okay, he pretended that life just pissed him off most of the times and he was pretty aggressive and all of that, but well, call it his rebellious nature or whatsoever, anyway, he liked life. He liked being rich, being cool, having a car, a cheerleader-girlfriend, even always enough alcohol to drink himself away now and then, his life in general. And even when he felt that dissatisfaction sometimes, he wouldn't have exchanged it for anything else. There were only two persons he cared about, so it was just so easy. Then that crash. And suddenly everything had changed, and it got worse every day. He somehow got through it, over it and he really thought that that was it. Now it's happening all over again. Death, the fear, most of all this uncertainty. Again losing control." She hesitated, surprising. "Did I really just say all of that 'bout him?" 

"Yeah", Alex confirmed, "phew, quite a long speech 'bout our favourite topic. I suppose, someone should have a look after it, uhm, _him_. Bet he's just outside in his car, listening to some hard rock, trying to cool down – " he hesitated, thinking about the last night, he rolled his eyes at his own stupidity, "maybe he's not sitting in his _car_, but I'm sure, he's somewhere near." His eyes focused on Clear. "Take care of yourself, okay?" he said softly and it was obvious that he hated to leave her alone. Concerning the pattern, she was next, so there was no direct danger for Carter, but since things had turned out to be pretty strange, Alex wouldn't trust in that a hundred per cent. 

He had no idea how right was. 

*Okay warning, this is another 'talkative' chapter, I can't do anything about it. But things have to be said. Thanx to KAZUHA-CHAN: loved to hear that u liked 'my' asshole. Thank you so much for your review. I thought so, that ur German as well, I mean, that 'ähem' gave me at hint. lol*

Clear looked at Liz, horrified, after hearing her last words. They were still in the apartment for it seemed to be the safest place for Clear. "Are you crazy? Man, you mustn't even say that to him, joking. He's quite capable of jumping out of the window, to avoid that something's happening to us."

"I'm not sure, but …. what if –" Liz tried to find the right words, "Alex, so to speak …. what I want to say is, it was him, getting all of you out of the plane then, and –"

"Actually he was only responsible for Carter getting thrown off with him, though, not even for that", Clear cut off, lost in thought. Once again the scene was played through in her mind's eye. Again and again they had run through this, she couldn't remember how often. She sensed Alex' agitation as clearly as then, saw him jumping up from his seat beside Tod, saw Carter, furiously pouncing on him, and the security officers, leading him out of the plane, Terry, following them being indignant, Billy, having come to late and being refused to enter, Tod, her two teachers and finally herself, grabbing her stuff at the last moment, following them back into the departure lounge. She took a deep breath, trying to banish the terrible pictures, inevitably following, off her head, but they stuck like a glutinous mass in the convolutions of her brain. "Okay", she finally said", let's sum it up: Alex had that vision, Carter was mad at seeing the start recede into the distance and he couldn't stand Alex in any case, now definitely less than ever, so he attacked him and therefore was thrown out with him. Of course Terry didn't wanna fly without her boyfriend, Billy wasn't allowed to get in, for the security was unnerved slowly but surely, not caring why he was that late, they just wanted to have everybody off board, that wasn't sitting well-behaved in its seat. Tod's brother asked him to care for his best friend, but he certainly would've followed him two seconds later by himself, since being our teachers, Miss Lewton and Mr Murnau were responsible for us and I – I just believed him." Once more she took a deep breath, a little more quavering this time. There just seemed to be not enough oxygen in this room. Cautiously Liz took her hand, gently pressing it, and Clear was grateful that she didn't take it back within the next minutes. "Alex even would've got out voluntarily and no one forced Terry, Tod and me, to do as well, Carter and Billy actually had no chance to do something else as well as our teachers, though Miss Lewton, well, remained voluntarily – you know what I mean – sending back Mr Murnau. Okay, taking out the others, then I'm left. Like the FBI agents said: at that time there was no considerable connection between us, I could've stayed on the plane. Do you understand; the rest of them more or less had a reason to stay, all, save me. But it trailed me nevertheless, just as them. But it didn't get me." With an angry gesture she wiped away some tears. Actually she almost never cried and surely wouldn't start now. 

Liz smiled at her. "I see you've understood what I was driving at."

"You think, if Alex wouldn't have thrown us into a state of panic, then we all would've crashed down as it was meant to be. No matter how you look at it; it's all coming from him and going back to him."

"A frightening cycle, isn't it?" a voice rang out from the door. Both girls jerked round to see Carter and Alex, loaded with some paper bags and a box of bottles, obviously being back from buying. Engrossed in conversation, they hadn't noticed that the lock had been opened. 

It took a minute, before Clear noticed that it had been Alex talking. His tone had sounded so odd, almost unknown. And she didn't like the expression in his eyes, at all. 

"How long have you been standing there?" Liz asked, feeling a bit uncomfortable, though she basically had no reason to. 

"Long enough to know, that you are of the opinion that our friend Browning here should blow his brain out as soon as possible", Carter replied lightly as if talking about the weather. 

"It's not funny!" Clear said. 

Carter, who was putting down his bag, stood up. "It might astonish you, but I agree with you completely. It's not funny. Nevertheless, it's the quintessence of what _she_ has said." He turned to Liz. "Am I right?" he inquired with a smug grin. 

"You're such a wanker, Carter. Such a damned, fucked up asshole." She looked at Alex. "Listen, I don't want to give you the feeling I'd –"

"No, it's okay", he answered calmly, closed the door and slowly sat down on the floor at the opposite wall. "It's not as if that thought was so new to me –"

"What??" Carter let slip out. "You know the solution to this problem and only come out with it now??" 

The heads of the three others turned to him one after the other, their facial expressions varying from amazement to horror. 

"What kind of solution is that supposed to be?" Liz voice had a disbelieving undertone. 

It was gradually dawning on him what he had just said and he tried, to neutralize it somehow, but couldn't think of anything, that would be compatible to his cool image, though he himself was obviously shocked at his words.

Liz swallowed her sarcastic comment. "I just didn't want –"

"You didn't", Alex interrupted her again. "And I'm sure, we all had this idea 

before."

"Okay Browning, somehow I still don't like you, but I want to straighten out that I don't want you to snuff it, no matter what I've just said. It –"

"But you did think of it. Admit it." Alex still spoke unusually composed. "It's not about whether you really want to see me dead or not, solely a logical conclusion. "

Carter lowered his eyes, taking a deep breath, but then refrained from comment. After all, what could he say?

"Perhaps all of this is big nonsense." Liz ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. "And besides, it doesn't get us any further."

An awkward silence spread across the room; no one dared to look at the others, in secret each of them cursing themselves for the thought flashing through their minds within a split second. 

After a while Alex got up.

"Where do you want to go?" Clear asked alarmed. 

"I need some fresh air", he replied toneless, taking a step towards the door. 

"You can also have that on the balcony." Liz pointed backwards. 

"You don't get it, I have to get _out_ of here." He went on, but Carter blocked his way, pushing him back a bit. "The balcony _is_ outside, Browning." Intending to lead him towards the corresponding direction, he put a hand on his shoulder, but Alex reluctantly shook it off, collared him and slammed his back hard against the wardrobe in the floor. 

"That's just not far enough, okay??" he shouted at him. "I gotta get out of that apartment, away from that house!! I cannot stand it any longer, I cannot stand _you_ any longer, don't you get that??" 

Carter stared at him, an indefinable look in his eyes and in his experience Alex expected him to attack him every minute, but nothing of that kind happened. "You won't go anywhere alone, did _you_ get that?" he gave back instead, astonishingly calm. "If you want to I can also smash your face in first, but you won't go without one of us, got that?"

Alex shook his head, but let go of him, reaching for the handle. "I just have to be alone for a while, or I'll crack up. _Please_", he mouthed.

"You're not gonna do silly things?" For the fifth time Clear twisted the same strand of hair around her finger. 

Alex gave her a tired look. "Do you want it in writing?" He was almost out at the passage, Carter ready to go with him, as Liz' voice called him back one more time. Resigned he hung his head. It was interesting how long it could take to leave a building. 

"You should never forget that it's just a stupid theory, one out of countless others. And even if obviously all of us, including you, had the same thought, I'm sorry that it was me who said it out loud. We have to rely on suppositions if we don't wanna sit around idly, but no one tells us whether we are right or not. And there's one more thing you ought to know; it was _you_, saving them from the plane, but _I_ was the one getting panicky in the restaurant – though you believed me pretty fast and supported me – so everything applying to you also does to me. Okay, now you can say that, you wouldn't have been there, if you had been on that plane then, but geeze, Alex, there are so many factors not being considered, they can't be, cuz we're not capable of taking everything into account. That _what if_-game is not much help to us. I mean, do you know whether for example Billy Hitchcock or Miss Lewton didn't cheat death before and, following this sick theory, mustn't have been with you any longer? Maybe the pilot took his coffee this morning with milk cuz there was no sugar left, spilling some over his suit and therefore arrived at work two minutes to late. Perhaps otherwise things would've been different. If you believe in that fate-stuff, some meteorite storm could even haven an effect on the durability of your Walkman-battery. See, what I'm trying to say is – we still know too little. Your scheme with the sequence's correct in any case, but", she hesitated for a moment, before continuing. Something in her head had begun to take shape, but she wasn't completely sure how to express it. "The real question is more –"

"Why me, of all people?" Alex leant against the doorframe, his arms folded. "Believe me, for a thousand times we –"

"No, no", Liz, starting to organize her mental chaos, firmly shook her head, "that is second place. Man, I can't believe that I only catch on it now. It's not about _why_ you had this vision, it's more important why you had it _at all_. How? Where suddenly from? You're not known for supernatural abilities. So why?"

"Well, it's not important any more, cuz I have them no more. I didn't see anything of what was going to happen to Carter and you."

"But you were meant to. What makes it even more weird." She took something from her desk and hold it up. It was a thin book. "You know where I found that? Under my desk. Must've dropped. I remember that I was reading in it the night before the crash for I was searching for an actress' name. I'm sure I didn't throw it there. It's Cara's. About David Lynchs movies. And now, look at the cover." They stared at the picture of a severe car crash. "If there's something like a Grim Reaper, tracking us, because some perfidious plan has been thwarted, who makes up the rules? Where does this plan come from? Does, who- or whatever's after us, only ensure the correct implementation, or is it the initiator itself? And assuming that all of this is in accordance with reality, who's standing on the other side then?"

"Us", Carter answered, shrugging. 

"And where do these visions come from?" Liz started to draw circles onto the carpet with her finger. "Why are we able to do this, all at once? Of course, I always wished to have some supernatural skills, but the truth is that unfortunately I'm no witch or something of that kind." She looked up, first at Clear, than at Carter. Then she glanced past him. But there was nothing. She understood only with a little delay. 

"Where is Alex?" 

****

*Whoa, OMG, will I ever stop talking?? Are you still with me? My only excuse is that this was one of the first parts existing of my story. Now, with all the other chapters, it's of course pretty long, but I didn't wanna shorten it. Yeah well, end of excuse."

"A fucking cemetery?? You're kidding!!" Carter got out of Clear's car and leant against it. "Okay, we all know that he's a psycho, but –"

"Yeah well, but it makes kinda sense, doesn't it? No ones gonna disturb him here." Clear gave back. "We've been searching for him in all the other places _you_ proposed. Which were two. Now we're following _my_ plan!"

"Could you stop talkin' 'bout plans?? I've really had enough of them!!"

They entered the huge iron gate. Okay, to be honest, they climbed over it. 

"Breaking in a cemetery, how pathetic can one be?" Carter complained. 

"Well stay out then", Clear snapped, sick of his constant grumbling. "I just _feel_ that he's here, okay?" 

"What and leave all the fun to you?" he asked sarcastically. "N what did you mean by _feel_? You're not starting that premonition-stuff yourself, do you?"

She didn't listen to him. "Clear? Hey, Miss Snooty, I'm talking to you!! Clear?? CLEAR!!"

She felt him pushing her forward, throwing her to the ground. "What the –" she started furiously when she heard how something heavy hit the ground, it was even possible to feel a little tremor. Her heart stopped beating for a second, than began racing like crazy. Slowly turning around, she saw a huge angel, built of stone, that had fallen off his high plinth, near to a grave. Without Carter's reaction it surely would've struck her head. He let go of her, scrutinizing her. 

"Shit, are both of you okay??" Liz cried. 

Carter still looked at Clear. "Are you?" 

She shrugged, then nodded slightly, still busy trying to stop her hands and the rest of her body from shaking. Until now she had really loved angel sculptures, for her father had bought her a little one when she was a child. _For her protection_. She had believed in their powers. _Then_. Of course she had known she was next, but –

"Dying on a cemetery – that's really crap!" Carter said, him and Liz helping her friend to get back on her feet. "Like out of a bad, bad, _bad_ D-movie!!" 

"It skipped me", Clear whispered. 

"I know", he nodded, wiping the dirt off of his pants. "I know." 

****

It was only this night, Alex had the strangest dream. Right after the crash he had had nightmares for about two years, but then it got better, he almost stopped dreaming, or, at least, couldn't remember any of them. Well, this night, they had come back. Or rather, him. 

_He crossed a morgue, looking similar to the one he and Clear had broken in, for he wanted to see his best friend Tod one more time. The smell of decay and disinfectant wasn't as strong as then, but still clear enough. This time he was alone, walking through a big entrance hall, he couldn't remember having seen the first time. He turned right, finding himself in a long passage that lead to single niches. Without knowing why, he entered one of them. There were kind of shelves, directly built-in the stone walls, that contained loads of urns. He glanced over the names, when a certain one caught his eye. Reaching out his hand, to stroke the letters on the small silver nameplate, that was attached below, when a sudden noise made him jerk, unintentionally tearing down the urn. It surely would have broken on the hard ground, but a hand grabbed it quickly and cautiously placed it back onto its shelves. As if spellbound Alex stared at the slim bracelet, made of plaited black and blue leather bands. Pictures of his childhood flashed in his mind. Black for the protecting darkness and blue for hope. Two boys in a tent, a bottle of root beer, the flickering light of a torch with low batteries, a promise. "You still got it?" he asked, not daring to turn around, afraid, the one standing behind him could disappear the very same moment. _

_"What, did you really throw yours away? Last time I saw it, it was pinned on your notice board. And since you've never been able to throw your childhood-stuff away, bet it's still there. C'mon, dude, don't lemme talk to your back."_

_Slowly, Alex turned around, looking at the young man now standing in front of him. Speechless. Tod looked pretty well if you could say that concerning a dead person. And he seemed to be the same age like him, Alex wondered how that was possible._

_"Just a little trick", Tod said. _

"Can you read my mind?" Alex asked, still unable to comprehend what was going on. 

_"Ooops", Tod smirked, scratching his head. "Well, just one of those things that make it bearable here." He pointed at the urn. "I know, I wasn't burnt either, though I'd preferred it, ya know, thinkin' of your body rotting in a grave's not that great, but my parents …. "_

_"Are you really here?" Alex' voice had become somewhat croaky due to the tears he tried to suppress. _

_"Reality's so relative and since this is a dream - oh c'mon, man, come here", Tod said softly, embracing him. Alex had somehow expected to fall through him, but Tod's body was warm and _alive_. _

_"You're fine …. _there_?"_

"Hey", Tod shoved him away, laughing, something, Alex really had wished badly to hear during the last years, "do I look great or what?? Actually, George is always – well ya know, I can't tell you that." The next minute his face was serious. "You dunno how I longed to talk to you for eternities, but I'm afraid we haven't got the time and there's something you need to know. I'm sorry that I can't make it that clear, but: ya know, I know what's going on down there, but I cannot help you, I shouldn't even be here. All I can say is: Watch out, Alex. It's started again, but it's different this time. More furious. Something has changed. It's not willing to let you escape once more. It's not what you used to know. And though I really miss you, dude; don't join us so soon." He smiled. "And if – Alex? Alex? Can you hear me?" He put an arm on his shoulder. " Alex? Don't wake up, don't –"

"Wake up, psycho!!" Reluctantly Alex opened his eyes as someone shook him heavily, nearly ripping off his shoulder, looking straight into a pair of well-known cold blue eyes. "My God, how deep _is_ your sleep?" Carter rolled his eyes, turning to Clear. "See? He's _not_ unconscious."

Giving him an angry sidelong glance, she jostled past him and knelt down beside Alex. "Are you okay?" She gently ran her hand through his hair, then touched his forehead, finding it was quite warm.

"Fever?" she asked worried, but he shook his head. "It's just pretty hot that night 'n with the jacket –"

"What the fuck you thought you were doing?!" Carter yelled at him. "Do you think at all??" 

"Oh, so you were _anxious_ 'bout me?"

Carter gave a cold laugh. "Dream on, man! No, but these two girls were getting on my nerves with listing all the things that could happen to you. Seriously, as soon as we're back home I'm gonna tie you to some chair, or better to the wardrobe." He laughed as imagining it. "Cuz I'm sick of running after you!" 

Alex noticed Clear 's torn shirt. "What happened?"

"We had wild, passionate sex on the beach, before we thought of maybe saving your life." Carter answered, the dirtiest grin on his face, Alex had ever seen. 

*Geeze, my 'attacks' are really cheesy. Pathetic. A 100 per cent 'unscary'. So, go on lc, and lose all your readers, boohoo.*

"So loser, was it at least worth it? Did it you get a kick out of it?"

Alex screw up his nose. "You're weird."

"Nonononono, you mix things up; _you_ are weird, _I_'m cool." 

"Which is _so damned_ important." Carter glared at her, but Liz just couldn't refrain the comment. 

"Well, a stupid like you will surely never understand." 

She snorted with contempt. 

"You're hurt?" Alex was still looking at his friend, but she shook her head and lowered her eyes. He reached out to push her hair back from her face, then put a finger under her chin, to raise it, so she had to look at him. "So you cheated it?" He smiled. 

"You know what –"

"Shhh, don't worry." He gently stroked her hair, wondering whether this feelings inside of him would disappear as soon as the strain, the situation had caused, diminished.

"_Don't worry_?? Alex, you –"

"What are you whispering together all of the time over there?!" an impatient voice cut off. "So freak, if you don't have anything interesting to tell I'd propose we leave this place to get you back home, where I can tie you up and gag you, just to make sure, nothing's gonna happen to you, of course." He laughed out loud, as something crossed his mind. "And I'm _still the safest fucker in the world_. _Twice_."

"I wouldn't be too certain of that –"

The jock gave him an almost bored look. "What do you mean by that?"

Alex told them about his dream, somehow still sensing Tod's presence. Clear groped for his hand, gently stroking it, following the lines of the scars that had been left behind from the night many years ago, when he had saved her life, ready to give his own. 

"That was it??" Carter cried in disbelief, after he had finished. 

"Yeah well, that's where _somebody_ ripped me out of the dream."

Carter took a step forward. "Hey, don't worry, I can knock you unconscious so you can go right back into dreamland and get the fucking information!"

"And there's another thing." 

Hearing that, Carter let out a loud, peeved groan and let himself fall to the ground, beside Liz, regretting it the next second. 

'Maybe you should take more care of your knee if you want to keep it. Could be pretty useful when you have to escape the Grim Reaper next time." 

Gritting his teeth in pain, he looked at her, his eyes flaming with desire to kill. 

Chapter 13 of their little private war was interrupted, as they were distracted by the rustle of paper. Alex put a newspaper between them, and they all leant forward to be able to decipher something in the pale light of a single lantern. It must be a strange picture for somebody passing by. Four young people, sitting in the dark of night in the midst of a cemetery, close to a hidden little chapel, not celebrating a black mass, but reading a paper. 

Fortunately no one passed by. 

'Man, surviving explosion, died of heart attack!!' the headline announced. "Felipe Noriega, the manager of "Mar Océano", the restaurant, which was completely destroyed due to a gas explosion a few weeks ago, claiming the life of four people, - we reported - died of a heart-attack in his holiday home in Malibu, this morning. Mr Noriega leaves no family behind. Further details will be published as soon as they are available.' 

"Poor man." Liz was the first one to speak. "But didn't you say he came out …." she hesitated, making an undecided sweep of the hand. 

"After _you_." Carter concluded, remembering the situation vividly. "At the last moment …. But this is weird. Kinda vice versa. It's not following the rules."

"Or they've changed 'n we dunno." Liz continued. "Don't you remember what Tod told Alex in his dream?"

"Well I'm always the first in breaking stupid rules – I mean, that's what they were made for, weren't they -, but …._no_! It can't make up the rules first to not obey to them then." 

Liz tried to suppress a grin about Carter's disbelief, but he caught it anyway, shrugging. "Explain, if you can find any sense."

"Okay, if it's no longer following the plan …." she scratched her head, "maybe it's now after the one that saved the others, nonononono, that guy surely wasn't trying to save our lives in Malibu Beach …. okay, stupid idea …. then –"

"What about not following _any_ plan?" Clear asked in her calm way. "What, if the new design for us goes like: just kill them all?" 


	6. Chapter 4

_*Thankx for your reviews (towel dancing, hehe)!!*_

"Oh, come on, Cart, we're all shocked, okay?" Clear sighed. Why did that jock always have to spoil every joke with his arrogant, so supadupacool behaviour? 

At the moment they were in Liz' apartment. She didn't believe her eyes when she opened the door. Unfortunately she had forgotten to look through the peephole first. Four days after they last had met, the three had decided that it was enough time for Liz to calm down a bit and not too late to start working out something. Liz still didn't know what had made her let them come in. Right now they were sitting on her balcony, drinking some Coke. Though the whole situation was so odd, they couldn't stop laughing at the most impossible things. In between Liz tried to reach Cara through her cell to make her come to her flat, too – not that she believed them now or was afraid of them, but after all, Cara was involved just as her - but no one picked up. There was no need to worry about it, because her friend was famous for forgetting her mobile at home or in her car. Probably she was driving, and so Liz sent her an sms, to not distract her from the traffic with the constant beeping. 

"Will you stop calling me that? Not calling you Cle either."

She just ignored his comment. 

"And: no, I'm _not_ shocked. Guess I kinda got used to. This little explosion's not gonna _change my life_ or something."

"Yeah, well … it seems as if it already did", Alex said, watching him uneasily. 

"What the hell are you talking about??"

Alex hesitated, obviously wheighing up whether to tell him the truth or not. He decided on the last opportunity. "Eerr …. ya know …. that sometimes …. when people are …. like really frightened …. to death … eeerr …. uhm, did you see 'Nightmare on Elm Street'?"

"Huh?" Carter was irritated by the sudden change of topic. "Of course, but what –"

"What did change …. ya know, that girl …. Nancy …. something had _changed_ in the end, something concerning her appearance", he tried to explain, cautiously preparing Carter for the main point, "her hair …."

"Her ha –" his eyes opened wide in shock as he understood. He jerked round and ran into the bathroom, a panic expression on his face. 

"Where is it?? Where??"

Outside, Alex high fived with Clear and Liz, while calling back in a serious tone: "Right – no, left side, a lil' at the back!"

"Will somebody fuckin' show me?!?!" his friend shouted angrily, the others bursting out into laughter. "Hey! It ain't funny, you bastards! Oh my God, it's true!! I already thought you were just – _shit_!! This is even – wait, this is …. it's _cream_! Fuckin' cream!!! BROWNING!! I swear, when I've washed it out, then –"

The sound of running water and the telephone bell interrupted his threats. Liz took off the receiver, still giggling. He-he-hello? …. Yeah, of course, hehe, what's up, you sound like –"

Carter, now with wet hair, ready to beat Alex up, just entered the room in time, to see her smile fading away. Her face became paler each second as she listened to the person at the other end of the line. "I' …. I'm just coming", she finally said, her voice no more than a whisper, hanging up.

"What's wrong?" Clear asked, being afraid she already knew the answer.

Like in a trance, Liz reached for her car keys. "Gotta go", she murmured.

"Nonononono." Clear gently but firmly took the keys out of her hand. "You won't drive", she said softly. "Who was that?"

Liz looked up without really seeing her. "Grace …. Cara's mom, she …. I promised to come –" 

Clear really hated to press her with questions, but they had to know. "An accident?"

"_Accident_!" Liz gave a short, bitter laugh. "A wasp …. Cara's allergic. There are people escaping a gas explosion and then such a little animal –" It was like the fireman, risking his life every day and then breaking his neck because of slipping on a banana skin. 

"I'll get you there" she said in a soft voice, shoving her towards the door. She interchanged glances with the others, there was no need to talk. They already knew it all. They'd gone through this.

And now it had started again.

"It's losing no time", Carter spoke more to himself than to Alex. They looked at each other in silence, both of them caught up in thousands of thoughts they had hoped to have left behind an eternity ago. 

*****************

Liz stared into space, not noticing what was going on around her. She wanted to sit, stand, lie, walk, run all of that at the same time. But most of all she wanted to forget. Forget what had happened, forget why she was here. She wasn't able to speak. And if she had been, she wouldn't have wanted to. The shock was too deep. It was the same procedure over and over again. Like a merry-go-round that wouldn't stop rotating. A sequence of three thoughts: she wanted to meet Cara and almost picked up the telephone when it suddenly occurred to her that it was impossible and then why. But her brain didn't manage to synchronize it. Always those three steps. She knew the next ones. The big darkness growing inside of her, making her unable to feel anything. She wouldn't be sad and surely not happy, she wouldn't laugh nor cry, cuz if she started she wouldn't stop. So she'd just act like a zombie, except the killing-people-to-crack-their-head-and-eat-their-brain-part, of course. 

Clear, Alex and Carter were sitting on the bed and chairs, watching the young woman outside on the balcony. They understood quite well, what she was going through. Since she and Clear had come back late at night, she hadn't spoken a word. Only now and then she was checking her cell phone whether there was a notice from Jocelyn, who was on an excursion with one of her departments. 

"Why is it so fuckin' fast?" Carter asked for the third time.

"I _still_ dunno!" Alex replied.

"So then you better come up with an idea, Browning, cuz Mr Death somewhat seems to be in a hurry this time!"

"Why don't _you_ devise something, for a change?"

"Cuz that's _your_ part.".

"Excuse me? What's yours then?" Clear interfered. "The drinkin' one?"

"Oh, you're just soo funny, bunny!"

"And you're just such a rhymer, slimmer! Can we stop that?"

"It's weird", Alex murmured, fetching something out of his pocket.

"Oh c'mon, Browning, you haven't already got a drawing like the last time, do you?"

Alex gave him a disconcerted look. "Actually it's a whole book yet. Stupid! It's just a chewing gum, okay? So cool down. But if you don't understand it while talkin' 'bout it, I can draw you one."

"You shouldn't overdo this." Carter said in a very low voice, a sure sign, that he was going to burst out soon. 

But Alex refused to show any fear. He leant over a bit to Clear, pointing at him. "You see that look? It means _death_." 

Without wanting it, Clear let out a giggle, but then quickly was in control of herself again. Even Carter tried hard to remain serious, cuz he actually should've been quite angry with that jerk ridiculing him. 

_"You know what a déjà-vu is, don't you?" Liz heard herself ask. In her mind she was sitting on her bed, back in the night after the explosion. She couldn't tell how they'd finally reached her apartment. _

_Cara nodded. _

_"You know, usually it's like – at least with me – that I got that feeling _afterwards_, that I already went through a certain situation, and _only_ then. Sometimes even during it, like bit by bit. Then I know after every little sequence, okay, you already know that, that as well, this one sounds quite familiar, too, and some time there's the point, I know, okay, you didn't know that. And that's it. But I'm only able to recognize the situation in retrospect. Even if I absolutely know for sure that I know the situation; I couldn't tell at any price, what would happen next. I can only _recognize_ it." Slightly shaking, she took a deep breath. "But this time it was different. I could foresee it, Cara, you understand me? I did see all of this like in a movie. But somehow it was also like a memory. It started when the boy showed the ribbons of the red lantern to his brother. That was like the cue. It stuck for moment, but then the waiter, the glass, the –" She stopped. "Why didn't they believe me, Cara? I know, probably every normal person would act that way, but you came with me, too."_

_Cara put an arm around her. "Sweetie; I'd go anywhere with you. And since you're not mentally ill ...." she smirked and it felt like somebody stabbing a knife inside Liz' heart and turning it. _

_"It ain't your fault."_

_"I'm trying to talk myself into believing it" She let her head hang down. "But I don't."_

_"This is bullshit!" Cara gave her a kiss on her hair and embraced her tighter while she let her cry. _

_In the early morning hours, Cara had fallen asleep, so Liz had put her headphones on, listening to some hard rock, pumping up the volume so high, that the first accord gave her the impression that her head would be blown away. The music was booming in her ears. She tried to concentrate on every single accord, the drums, single voices. Main thing was, her thoughts wouldn't get any chance to stray, wouldn't find any gap in the straight stream they could escape through. She even bridged the short breaks between the tracks by spooling forward. She had another swig from the bottle of wine, but it wasn't lulling her mind at all. It almost seemed as if it gave everything a frightening clarity. She shook her head as if trying to drive away a mosquito and felt a stabbing pain in her temple. It didn't matter, even if her head was going to explode due to this crude treatment, she wouldn't turn the system down one iota. After all, everything was better than thinking. She closed her eyes and the movie in her mind started his private show once more, so she opened them again. _

A little irritated by seeing a wall of darkness instead of a blanket, she pushed her hair back from her forehead, still having a picture of a sleeping Cara in mind. No matter what had happened, Cara was always able to sleep. Lucky one. Hearing a noise in the back, Liz turned around. "Sorry, I just dropped the bottle." Alex gave her an excusing smile. "But your carpet's fine." 

"I'm sure it thanks you a lot", she answered, unable to return the smile. She glanced at the others. "So, you're still here." 

"You remember, we considered it to be better not to be too far away from each other during the next time."

"But isn't it like being on show? It could get us so much easier then. All at once", she wondered. 

"Believe me, it's better this way."

_*Wanted to add so much more, but that's it for now. Nice weekend!*_

_*THANX DARK, what more can I say?*_

Liz woke up as the first sunbeams touched her skin. The warmth stroked her cheek and for a short moment that peaceful morning feeling fulfilled her, as if everything was just the way it should've been. Then it came back like a punch. She sat up, rubbing her eyes and then glanced over the room, finding the others still sleeping; Alex and Carter on some foam mattress on the floor, of course as far away from each other as possible. Due to the fact that Liz' bed was a really huge double bed, Clear lay on the right side. She wondered how the whole thing would continue. Did they honestly suppose her and them have to spend the rest of their lifetimes together? She didn't hope so. Only some more time with that jock and she really would – but now she had different problems. Her thoughts started circling again and she wished somebody would just knock her unconscious or, much better, turn back time. Why did it have to be Cara, why did it have to be her and not Liz? Why did they go to that restaurant they'd never been in before? Why that evening? Why –

"Okay, I give up", a voice broke into her thoughts. She looked up to see Carter coming out of the kitchen, folding his arms in a resigned way. "Where is the coffee machine?"

"There is none."

"There is n- trying to tell me you have no coffee machine??" It really seemed to shock him. "What the hell are you making coffee with?" He eyed her suspiciously. "Or are you one of those freaks only drinkin' _tea_?"

Actually she liked tea a lot, but was too exhausted to discuss with him. "Just look at the cupboard, there's a big glass, containing some instant coffee. I'm sure you know how to boil water."

Carter raised his eyebrows and turned around. "Where's the kettle?" he called out of the kitchen. "Horton, use your brain, will ya??" someone from beside Liz yelled back annoyed. Clear sat up and looked at Liz. "So sorry you have to bear him. - How are you?"

"Fine". She grimaced. "The whole thing's quite weird."

"I know it won't help you at all, but – I know how you feel. We all do. Even he. Not only concerning that design, also ….. I'm so sorry."

"Yeah." Liz said simply and shrugged. "Me too."

****

"Actually it's not _that_ bad", Carter said, taking another sip. "Though I already had better coffee."

Alex sighed. "He's just tryin' to be friendly."

"No, I'm not."

"_Yes_, you _are_", Clear added emphatically. Why the hell could he never stop behaving like an asshole?!

"Cuz I am one", he said as if reading her mind, then turning to Alex. "So, go on, freak, tell her what this is all about, while I'm driving home to get some stuff."

"You won't go alone, ya know the rules."

"Fuck you, Browning, I'm not asking you for permission, okay?" 

"You won't go alone" Alex replied unimpressed. "All of us will later, cuz Clear' n me 'll surely need some stuff as well."

His friend snorted derisively, but lounged back, folding his arms. "Would you mind hurrying up, _dad_?"

Alex sighed once more, before continuing: "See, I know you don't wanna hear this right now, cuz your minds busied with too much stuff, but …. it's like that: Clear already told you about the crash. It's similar to what happened in the restaurant. _Because of you_, people got out. No matter whether they believed you or not, no matter whether they were forced out by others." He and Carter interchanged a glance. "All of us were meant to die that night, but didn't. Like the night the plane exploded. We thwarted some plan, and death made a design for the ones that escaped. We lost four more friends. Then we could beat it, we're still not sure why and how, though everybody's got its own theories. Same story here. And it seems that it's after us again. Still all of us are meant to die, following the order in which we got out. As far as I know that means", hesitating for a moment, "Cara was the first one –"

"Yeah, because I pushed her out intending to _save_ her", Liz spat. She looked down on the table. "Jus' go on."

"So …. Clear was the next one, then Carter, me and finally you."

"Who tells you it's gonna play that's just how we could beat it last time. All we can do is hope, since it's the only solution we have."

"Now you know, be careful, though you don't have to worry much since being the last number on the big list. Can we go now or what?" Carter became angrier every second.

"What are you staring at me for?" Liz asked.

"I'm trying to decide whether it would be possible to change the design!" he answered, an evil grin at his face. 

"HORTON!! What the hell's wrong with you??" 

"Ooh, it's nothing, Browning, don't worry", Carter gave back, as if talking to child. "I know that it's going to be such a beautiful day, and I shouldn't be PISSED OF CUZ THAT BITCH JUST TOOK ME BACK SEVEN YEARS!!"

"No one forced you to go to that restaurant." Liz was quite astonished herself, because usually she wouldn't remain that calm when somebody insulted her. 

"_You_ –" he started.

"And don't you ever dare call me bitch again, okay?" she added quietly. "Otherwise I'll ensure that your part of the design definitely will turn out to be right."

Unexpectedly Carter's smirk became somewhat brighter. Though still being quite mean. "I'm looking forward to your ideas."

Alex got up. Carter's aggressions started to tire him. At least, Liz was talking his language. "We're gonna get the car. We can talk while driving." 

"What the fuck was going on in there, huh?? She's just lost her best friend a few hours ago!! If you can't show any compassion, just shut up, okay??" he snubbed him outside. "Who am I tryin' to tell anyway since you never had any sense of tact?! Can you remember anyone of us treating you that way after Terry died? Yeah, just go on 'n beat me up, cuz I mentioned your dead girlfriend and cuz it's all _my_ fault. If this is still all you're able to do, I consider it to be quite pathetic." He could see Carter gritting his teeth, but not making any move to attack him or else, instead of he opened the side-door, winding the car-window down to let some fresh air in. 

"Just get in the car, asshole." 

Alex took a deep breath. "We won't let you die, Carter."

His friend just nodded, though he could see that he wasn't convinced that they had the power to survive it one more time.

To be quite frank, Alex wasn't either. 


	7. Chapter 5

_*'What is life, except excuse for death, or death but an escape from life."_ Anonymous

It was two weeks later. In the meantime the funeral had taken place. At first Liz had not wanted to go there, but of course went. Liz didn't have to wonder what it was like for the family, because she _knew_ it. Fortunately Cara's family didn't belong to a certain church, so she was not having one of those terrible religious funerals. Liz could remember very well the day of her cousin's. She had hardly been able to bear it. Mainly since that time she didn't believe in any more God-like superpower that ruled the world's fate. Religion, the way she had seen it being practised, was really repulsive. 

Only a few days later, Joce had left her, for beginning a period of practical training in a hotel in Spain, something, Liz had done one year ago. Unfortunately it hadn't been possible for both of them to do it at he same time. After all that had happened, Joce nearly decided to stay – one reason was, that she didn't want to leave Liz alone - but then her friend was able to convince her that leaving and having a time out would be the best. After reassuring that it was completely guaranteed that only the ones, that had been in the restaurant immediately before the explosion – and got out, of course -were in danger, she considered it to be better not to tell her anything. 

Right now she considered it far to be better never having entered the black sport car. _The first and the last one together_, it was flashing through her mind. Since Cara's sudden death no one of them had been in any kind of severe danger. 

"You really have to race like that?" Liz asked angrily.

"Ooooh, you scared?" Carter glanced at her, mocking.

"Will you _please_ look at the street?!"

"Hey, I've been driving for more than eleven years, I really know what I'm doing, okay?"

"Bet you had a lot of car crashes!! I must've gone nuts – to get into your fuckin' car!"

"HEY!! One more word against it and you gonna walk. All through the night, all by yourself!!"

"Oh, I'm just so afraid you kick me out!"

Without warning, he suddenly put his foot on the brake and the car stopped with squeaking wheels. 

"Are you totally crazy??" Liz cried. "What's wrong with you??"

"It's just: my car – my rules! I never forced you to get in."

"So you're gonna force me to get out now, or what?"

He looked up to the sky. The light was strange, letting everything appear unreal. Somewhat threatening. He shrugged, but, since he had never been the person to be impressed by some nature spectacle, refused to think about it any further, and, having forgotten about Liz' question, continued driving. On the other side she was sure that it was going to rain soon. No, not only rain, this would surely turn out to be a quite heavy thunderstorm. 

_*THANX; DARK; THANX! lol Up to now you're almost the only one that's reading it at all, so thank you even more, hehe.*_

It seemed as if Carter wouldn't have listened at all to what she said. Well, basically the point was, that he just didn't care. The sky had clouded more within the last minutes, there were flashes, still far away, but nevertheless near enough to see them. And there was the sound of thunder in the distance. 

"Scared?" He asked her, smirking as usual. 

"Actually I like thunderstorms. The powers of nature. They remind me of the end, disaster, _death_. _Bohooo_!!" She raised her eyes heavenward. "'N you?" she asked bored, glancing at her fingernails. 

"You're weird. Jus' like Browning."

"If weird means, that I'm – somehow, inexplicably – just unable to bear your presence, then I –SHIIIT!!"

Out of nowhere a red car raced past them, blocking off their way before illogically speeding up even more while trying to make the corner. 

"Whoa!" was Carter's only comment while steering wildly, trying hard to get the car back under control, before U-turning and accelerating to follow the red one who had been stupid enough to infuriate him, never mind nearly killed them.. 

"Geez! What kinda lunatic was that??" Liz took a deep breath and then realized what Carter was about to do, or well, already doing. "STOP!!" she yelled at him, but he didn't even listen. "_Carter, stop the car! I'm not gonna be part of that silly little revenge game!!_"

"You can jump out at any time", he snarled. 

"Fuckin' stop!!"

"Fuckin' shut up!!" he shouted back, a determined expression on his face. He was going to track this asshole down, even if it was the last thing he'd ever do. No one was messing around with him like that with impunity. But he seemed to have disappeared. Odd. There was only one street here he could go on. He didn't care about Liz, who was cursing him the whole time through. _There_ he was. The De …. _(*no, I'm not gonna write this, cuz the term belongs to DARK)*_ Grinning like the devil himself, he kept on speeding up until he nearly reached the other car. The driver froze, as he took a look into the rear view mirror and then panic-stricken slammed on the gas, but Carter had no difficulties in sticking to his opponent. Outside a heavy cloudburst had started, and the thick drops – or was it even hail? – drummed down on the window. Though Carter switched on the wipers he could hardly see anything, but still refused to slow down. He'd get that psychotic and then he'd beat the shit out of him. 

"CARTER!!" Liz cried furiously. "_You're gonna kill us both! For the last time, stop that – AAAAAAAHHH_" 

First Carter thought her a hysterical wimp for the horrified scream she gave. Until he heard the horn blowing, himself. Something huge and dark appeared directly in front of them. He tried to get out of the way as fast as he could, but nearly crashed into the rock, that lined the street on one side, so he made way by going right, feeling a hard blow against the back of back of his car the very moment, making it go into a skid. Desperately pulling the wheel around, he had another, far more terrifying, sensation, like losing ground. Due to the hard rain he was now completely unable to see anything, so instinctively he just braked, but the futility of his action became quite obvious as the car started to crash down into an impenetrable nothing. 

********

Liz was unable to move for minutes, though they seemed to her like hours. Her heart was beating hard against her ribs and her breath was abnormally fast. After an endless descent the car had finally been stopped by crashing hard against something. She couldn't believe that she was still alive. Well, maybe she wasn't. Probably this was it. Being stuck in the place she died in for eternities. 

"Are you okay?" She heard somebody ask from far away. "Liz?" 

She turned to the left, meeting Carter's eyes, blue and cold as usual. He reached out to touch her face, but she shrank back, so he let his hand drop. "You're bleeding." Doubting she passed her finger over her brow, looking at the red liquid on it. Automatically she turned down the sun visor to gaze at herself in the little mirror that was attached to it. A pale face, she hardly recognised as her own, stared back at her, a long red cut on the forehead. It was silent inside the car, only the unchanged heavy rain and the thunder were heard. She wondered where the constant light came from, for it must have been already late at night. Ah, the little light at the top was on. She glanced at her watch – 11:17 pm – and then over to Carter, scrutinizing him from head to toe. There was something with his jeans, around his right knee. Like it was wet. She touched it, to find a lot of blood drenching the cloth, making Carter have a sharp intake of breath and gritting his teeth in pain. "You're hurt", she simply established. "Someone should have a look at it." She was still unable to feel anything like fear or rage, just functioning, like a robot. 

"I'm not gonna take off my jeans, forget it."

She shrugged. "It's _your_ leg." 

"Damn right." 

"Where's your cell?" she wanted to know unexpectedly. "Guess we should call the others."

He took it out of his back pocket, handling it to her in silence. She dialled the number of her home, waiting for someone to pick up, counting. …. five, six, seven, eight –

"Yeah? " someone finally asked. Though the connection was quite bad, she recognised Clear's voice. 

"This is Liz."

"Oh my God, _it's them_!" she cried, obviously trying to call Alex' attention. "Where are you? We were worried, trying to reach you, but no one picked up, so we – you both okay? Is Carter with you?"

"Yes – and no …."

Clear's sigh of relief stopped. "What's up?"

Liz gave a cough. "We had an accident, kinda …. and the –"

"FUCKING SHIT!!" she got interrupted by Carter's shout. Another one of the innumerable flashes had lit up the scenery, just in time to let him see a huge bough falling down on the windscreen. Followed by the tall tree it had been ripped off. 

_*Sweet dreams.*_


	8. Chapter 7

*Oookaaay, I hope there's still someone reading this. Maybe I should just quit, for I seem to be totally unable to create anything like tension. Anyway, chappie 7. lol*

Liz was glad as they finally entered the mall. Carter had been going on her nerves the whole morning through, starting with him stepping into the bathroom without knocking, for he had decided to shave right now, not caring about her protests, yelling at her the next moment for she was using the hairdryer and turned on the faucet for two seconds, to wash some mousse off her hand. Whether she was determined to die of an electric shock and stuff, treating her like a baby, and it did cost her a lot of overcoming not to burst out and kick his ass out of the room. That apartment was just not built for four people. On closer examination she considered that no space could be big enough for both of them. 

The shopping centre was one of those new fashionable buildings, full of high-tech, chrome and huge glass windows everywhere, giving it a somewhat exclusive flair. "Ah, welcome to hellmouth", Carter grumbled at the huge entrance hall. Only one time he had been silly enough to join Terry on one of her shopping sprees, a lesson he never ever forgot. How could one spend hours, ambling through thousands of shops, looking at silly boring stuff? He never had any difficulties in buying _his_ stuff within a few minutes. Perfumeries and boutiques, two words, that frightened him more than the permanent mortal danger they were under. 

They took the lift up to the very top and sat down in one of the cafes, for Carter's knee was still damn hurting and he wasn't able to walk for a long time and none of them had had a breakfast. 

"Well, ain't that great?" Carter put down the rest of his ham roll, lounged back, folding his hands behind his head. "This means we don't have to worry anymore, cuz we could simply die _anytime_."

The others moaned. "Can't we just sit here, for once _not_ talking bout death or stuff", Liz complained. 

"Bout what _would_ you like to talk, _honey_?"

She looked heavenwards. "For example: _life_?"

"Just in case it has escaped your attention: _this is our life_. Welcome to it."

Instead of an answer she made a dismissive wave of the hand, refusing to give him any inflammatory stuff to go on, although she really would've loved to throw her plate into his arrogant visage as he smugly grinned at her in return. 

"Ah, shut up, will ya, please?" Clear, who sat next to him, dug him in the ribs. 

"Guess, I don't have to tell ya; that if you repeat that, you won't have to wait for the elevator to get you down, _do _I?" he reminded her, a fake smile on his lips.

Clear firmly shook her head as she saw that Alex was close to a breakout of fury. "It's okay, let him play his little games. Don't do him the favour and participate."

"Ooh, you guys are just _so sweet_", he replied. "Defending each other; _cute_." 

"Jealous because no one'd do that for you, _huh_?" Liz smiled innocently, forgetting what she had decided to do only a few seconds ago. 

"You better watch your words!" Carter narrowed his eyes to slits.

"Or else?" Withstanding his look, she leant forward, lowering her voice. "Carter, you know, when you're like that, so _furious_ …. so _cynical_, so …. pheeew –" she sighed, unable to explain her feelings towards him in a better way, "_manly_, _aggressive_, absolutely cool, n the way you don't care bout other people …. it makes me wanna …." her eyes wandering up and down his quite impressive body, "I mean, it really turns me – _off_!" Giving him a short fake smile, she lounged back in her chair and prepared another sandwich. 

For a few seconds he just stared at her, then gave a short laugh. "Bitch!"

She added some sliced tomatoes to her cheese sandwich. "So what, asshole?"

"Don't you ever expect any help from my side, when it's after you and I'm the only one near."

"Don't worry, I won't", she answered lightly and tucked in. 

****

Alex' eyes shone with joy as he noticed what lay in front of them. They had been in some shops, Carter of course letting them know each ten minutes how bored he was, and then went outside to get some fresh air and sit in the sun, just enjoying the day. It was at the backside of the centre. A huge plateau, standing at the other end, one had a splendid view over the city. But to get there – Alex felt like a little boy as he grinned at the others, realizing they obviously had the same idea. "Oh no, _no_", Carter groaned. 

"Oh yes, _yes_", Clear and Liz nodded, laughing. While Carter seriously considered to drive back home alone, for he thought it to be too embarrassing that someone could see him with these jerks– fortunately there were only a few people near them - the three of them went back about twenty meters to take a run-up. In front of them the whole ground was made of glass still covered with rainwater from the last shower about ten minutes ago. Combined with all the dust at least still enough to make it a pretty slippery affair. The next second they ran past Carter and slid whopeeing over the surface. They were stopped somewhere in the middle of it, Clear stumbled and fell down, sweeping the other ones to the ground, where they were lying in a knot, laughing their asses off. "Sure you don't wanna join in?" Liz giggled, looking at Carter, who still was profoundly shocked by their childish behaviour, even more as he saw another young couple, looking at each other, the same idiotic expression on their faces, his friends had. 

"Aww, c'mon, Carter, give yourself a kick up the backside", Alex laughed, "it's fun!"

"If you come over here you can get a kick up _your_ backside", he called back. "Man, you guys are pathetic!"

"I guess we can live with that", Liz smiled, getting up, as the young pair suddenly slid past them.

"Wohoo, two more meters!!" she congratulated. 

"Hardly surprising", the girl replied laughing, "seven years of figure skating."

"Hey, that's unfair, that's – oh look!" With her shoe Liz wiped off the dirt a bit, so they could see what was below the thick sheet of glass. It had to be the basement of the mall, for they could see some people pushing big handcarts full of garbage and pieces of cards, which seemed to contain products for the several shops. "Whoa man, _that's_ interesting, watching people work on your day off ", she bantered as the other ones leant forward, watching the hustle and bustle with interest. 

"Can we stop the fucking sightseeing of _mall's underground_ now?" Carter was deadly bored. Sticking his hand in his pockets, he found the keys for Alex' car, remembering that he had forgotten them on the table at the restaurant. He shrugged. If they wanted to stay here all day, okay, he'd fulfil their wish. 

"Hey, what was that?" Alex asked astonished.

"What was what?" Liz wanted to know, listening with half an ear. 

"Didn't you hear that?" 

"What do you mean? That unnerving voice from behind, from the direction of our misery-guts?" Clear laughed, faltering, when she caught his eye. "_What_?" she asked, having a dreadful foreboding, that turned her stomach. 

She could see him looking down on the glass, somewhat disbelieving. And then she felt it, too. A slight shaking, going through the ground. Followed by a faint crack. This couldn't be true. But as her mind was still refusing to believe, she already knew it _was_. 

"What is this?" The girl wanted to know, her voice quivering. Grasping her boyfriend's hand, she made an anxious step forward, creating the effect that the crackle increased. 

"_Don't move_!" Alex said, seeing that she was close to run away. "_Don't_. – Carter?"

Carter had almost reached the corner as he heard a familiar voice calling for him. Shit, he'd nearly managed to get away. "So the view's not _that_ beautiful?" he mocked at them, expecting to see them approaching him. His self-confident smile started to fade away, as he saw the five people seemed to have turned to pillars of salt. Before he could ask his question, another, a this time quite loud, sound of breaking glass, gave him an answer. He thought the situation over quickly. Since most part of the glass was covered with dirt, nobody was able to see how far the fissures had extended, so it was no good idea to step on it as well, as if trying to save someone from breaking ice covering a lake. "Okay, no panic, I'll get help!" he called over his shoulder as he left them, as fast as his hurt knee allowed. 

"Oh my God!" the girl shrieked in fear, as another crack made her stumble. Liz could see the fissures running through the glass like thousands of little veins. No one down below them had an idea of what was going on above them. About six meters above them. Again she glanced over the surface, but it was hopeless. The ends, where the glass met the stony ground, were too far away to reach them in time, and every move they made would surely crack the glass completely. She was still wondering how such a thick sheet of glass was able to break so simply, as the young woman, standing some meters away from her, cried out loud, as she slipped and fell down. Instinctively Alex and her and her boyfriend, standing closest to her, tried to grab hold of her. For one second, that seemed to last an eternity, there was an eerie silence, followed by the earpiercing mixture of the sound of horrified screams and cracking glass, crashing to the ground, dragging all five of them down into the depths. 

******

Thousands of fragments and broken pieces of glass littered the grey coloured concrete ground. Many of them speckled with a red liquid. Puddles of it between. Overshadowed by a bizarre zigzag pattern, caused by the sunlight that fell through the destroyed surface. It had won one more time. The air seemed to vibrate with a dark euphoria. Three people were lying on the ground, their wrenched and atrociously disfigured bodies covered with white sheets, to protect them from inquisitive looks, the blood from the innumerable cuts and injuries turning them red. 

Carter stared at them, blankly, following the lines of the corpses, shown underneath the sheets. He tried to swallow down the lump in his throat, but couldn't seem to manage it. The knowledge that he hadn't participated in his friends' silly game and therefore was still alive, didn't make it any better. He'd had hardly reached the entrance of the mall as he heard the terrible screams and sounds behind him. He'd jerked around to find the place, they had stood only a few seconds ago, empty. An icy claw had grabbed his heart as he ran back and looked over the edge. He closed his eyes. 

"There is no sense in that." 

He slowly turned around to the young woman, who was standing behind him. She had a bandage on her right hand, some scratches on her face and arms and her summer dress was torn, but she didn't have to share the fate of the three people in front of them. "I don't understand that." She gently touched his shoulder, but he evaded the contact. He couldn't bear being touched when he was that tensed. "Those poor people. They had nothing to do with it. I wonder why –"

He rubbed his temples, the only indication to his frame of mind. "Shut up Clear, okay?" he asked in a low voice. "I don't know the answer. If anyone does at all." He glanced at the ambulancemen and their patients. "How are they?"

"Better as one would expect under these circumstances. – Do you come with me over there? Liz has some deep cut on her leg, perhaps we have to go to the hospital so they can suture it there."

Following her, he had his eyes fixed on another person, sitting beside Liz. 

"I don't want to hear any comment like 'I told you'", Alex said in a warning tone. There was a large scratch extending over his left cheek, the first-aid attendant just treated. 

"You really think me such an asshole?" Carter asked, regaining his habitual coolness. "Well, maybe you're right", he added, as Alex just stared at him wordless. 

"_Anything else_?" Alex wanted to know, obviously trying hard to pull himself together, for after all the time he had spent with that guy, he was already suspecting where this was leading to. 

"You're not that badly hurt", Carter began. 

"Sorry", Alex replied sarcastically. "Next time I'll make more of an effort, okay?" 

"I'm just wondering why the four of us are still alive, while _they_ have taken our place." He pointed back at the corpses of the young couple and an employee of the mall, which was killed by the falling down glass. The ambulanceman gave Carter a strange look as he went away to have a look after another casualty, after having finished to fix up Alex. "Three of _us_ supposed to die – three of _them_ dead."

"What are you trying to tell me, Horton?!"

"I'm expecting _you_, to come up with an explanation, Mr Premonition!!"

"I'm not clairvoyant!"

"Aww, did little Cole Sear lose his gift?" Carter kept on provoking him. "For fuck's sake, Browning, say something!! I'm soo sick of you and all that shit!!"

Before answering, Alex took a deep breath, suppressing the wish, to jump up and smash that boy's face in. "You wanna know what I'm sick of?" Without waiting for an answer he continued, his voice low, but strained, "I'm sick of being made responsible for that. It's not my fault, it never was my intention to live this way. I'm sick of you looking at me, waiting for an answer, expecting me to find a way out each time. And I'm even more sick of constantly having to repeat myself, for some fanatics are just not willing to stop making me their scapegoat, since their inability to cope with that situation without my help drives them mad. _Does that _answer_ your question_?" 

"As far as I'm concerned, I'm outta that freaky little game", Carter said grinning arrogantly. "It's not following its rules, that means I don't have to hang around with you guys any longer. Should've left you _days_ ago. Have yourselves a nice little rest of lifetime, wasting it on trying to stay alive. _I'm_ gonna _live_ now", his grin broadening, "for you know, I'm never gonna die!" He turned around, wondering where the sudden blackness, following the heavy blow against his head came from, knocking him unconscious before he hit the ground.

*Hehe, I mean, aww, I know that end was soo cheap and pathetic, but I just couldn't help to take revenge on that f*+# …. er, for the things I forced him to say. Writing is a weird affair ….*


	9. Chapter 8

_*KAZUHA-CHAN: So glad to hear u're still reading my stuff. :o)) Hope the next chappies were worth the waiting, hehe* _

Of course, Carter had refused to stay in the hospital. Though the doctor recommended to stay at least overnight, he had taken his jacket and left as soon as he was halfway able to stand alone. Which he couldn't very well yet. The only advantage was, that it was easier for his friends to look after him, when he was closer to them. And with his certainly murderous headache, he would give up the idea to leave them, for a while. 

"So it's the four of us again", Alex murmured as they drove back. They had taken a cab back to the mall, where his car was still standing. The place in the back had been bolted, the huge hole in the ground reminding of a big beast's jaws, ready to devour everybody that dared come too close to it. Clear shivered involuntarily, as she heard the sound of the cracking glass once more in her memory. At the edge of the stony ground she noticed Alex' dark figure, standing there, not caring about the closing off, looking down. "Let's go, man!" Carter called at him impatiently, paying it the next moment with a sharp pain in his temples. 

"You sure you don't wanna go back to the hospital?" Clear asked him, a bit worried. Okay, Carter was constantly moaning about something, but this time he really looked terrible. His face was quite pale and he obviously had big difficulties in fixing his eyes onto one point for more than a few seconds. 

"You will get rid of me soon enough, we don't have to hurry up."

Her eyes darkened in anger. "I can't find anything funny about it."

"Oh, c'mon, bet you been laughing your asses off as that big piece of glass knocked me out!" 

"Yeah, but we stopped when we found out that you weren't dead." Liz said. Alex, who had just returned and heard the last sentence, exchanged glances with Clear, while Carter gave a little laugh, before twisting his face with pain. "Can we go now?" 

"I don't get that, I still don't see the new pattern", Alex said, more to himself than to the others. "But there _has_ to be one."

"Yeah, you're wishing that so desperately, cuz you couldn't stand the fact that - geeze." Carter was swaying distinctly and the dizziness intensified as he closed his eyes automatically so he opened them again. "If you wouldn't mind thinking it over while we're driving home-" 

"If there was only somebody we could ask", Liz mumbled. 

"I'm afraid Giles' s not here", he grumbled back. 

"My God, first an X-Phile and now a Buffynian, don't make me like you!" she gave back ironically, but he was too tired to reply something and would just be happy with leaning back into the soft cushions of the backseat of the car. 

The parking lot they crossed was dark and almost empty, only a few cars were still standing there, their owners out of some reason unable to get back in time. None of the four wanted to think about whom they might belong to. It was past eleven o' clock as they arrived at the car. Carter leant against the sidedoor, his breathing heavy and faltering. The dizziness had increased during the last minutes and the surroundings went fuzzy. 

"Why can't you ever listen to what I say?" Clear asked him, sounding like a mother talking to her unreasonable child. "We're driving right back to the hospital."

"No fucking way", he answered, his cursing not as emphatic and convincing as usual. 

"That was no request, that was a-"

"I just want some fucking aspirin or stuff, okay? There is a …. pharmacy over there…. seems to be open 24 hours –"

"Where are the pills the doctor gave to you?" 

He frowned, trying to remember. "Er … at the hospital?"

Clear was left speechless. "Okay, you stay here – no, _you stay here_!" she repeated resolutely as Carter made a move to accompany her. "In your condition you won't even reach the middle of the street! – Why are you grinning?!" she turned to Alex, who tried to regain control over his features, without succeed. "Come, you can join me, I need someone to make nasty remarks with, about that stupid!"

The two young men were bawling as they chased the other car through the nightly streets. The mixture of alcohol and little white pills made them feel invincible and strong. This time _they_ would win. Grimacing and giving the drivers the finger, they tore past the other car. Their friends speeded up as well, but were forced to drive a short way over the pavement for the others cut in on them. Racing past the corner, they were certain of victory, too late noticing the two figures crossing the street. One of them hit the windshield with a thud, for the car drove too fast to be stopped in time, and was sent flying over the roof, before hitting the ground. 

"OH MY GOD, ALEX!!" 

As hearing the horrified yell, Liz and Carter jumped up from their seats, Carter holding on to the car door the next moment, as everything went black. The sound of squealing tyres rent the nightly silence; the second car went into a skid, as the driver suddenly slammed on the break, but it still wasn't slow enough to evade the crash, followed by a whole lot of explosions as the cars went up in flames the next second. Perhaps it was the excessive consumption of alcohol up to the early morning hours, maybe the fact that he hadn't ate anything since breakfast, maybe a mixture of both and the moderately severe concussion, at least Carter's stomach began to revolt all of a sudden, and the next second he vomited, directly over Liz' shirt. 

****

Clear knelt down beside Alex, disbelieving to see him making a move to get up. "Are you hurt?" 

He hesitated for a moment, then shook his head. "No." The meaning of his simple answer confused him. He was even more confused as two hands suddenly grabbed his head and he felt a pair of soft lips pressed onto his. Two seconds later Clear scrutinized him from head to toe. "You sure you're alright?"

He nodded, then turned around to the place where the cars stood, still burning and filling the air surrounding them with smoke and the smell of death. His friend shook her head as he gave her a questioning look. "The explosion was too heavy, it was too fast, no one –" she stopped. "I'm so glad you are alive –" she began.

"I must've been dead, Clear, this is just not right –"

"Not _right_?? Alex, since that day on the plane –"

"Don't tell me you don't think the same."

She sighed. "What do you mean – it's somehow not after us any more? Cuz we cannot seem to die and since we're still alive and human …."

"No, it _is_ still after us, Clear. _Now more than ever_."

Carter wiped off his mouth with the hanky Liz had given him She glanced over the terrible scenery; the gathering crowd, the ambulance, the fire brigade. All of that seemed to be too familiar. In a weird way. "Sorry for …. puking all over you", Carter interrupted her thoughts, grinning weakly.

Liz made a dismissive gesture. "Oh, don't worry, I mean, you been pissing me off since I first met you, so I guess …. throwing up all over me was just the next step."


	10. Chapter 9

_*And another BIG thanx to DARK (Man, I'm afraid they will keep on annoying u, sorry, lol), KAZUHA-CHAN, PRINCESS-DIVA06 & DYINGDREAD for ur wonderful reviews!! To anyone who hasn't seen 'Sixth Sense'; this chapter could contain a spoiler.*_

_'Now more than ever. Now more than ever.'_ Those words still reverberated in Clear's head as she got up. When they finally had reached the apartment at about two o'clock in the morning, she had just fallen into the bed like a stone, but had hardly slept one hour. Sitting up, she had found Carter at the balcony, for even after nearly having taken an overdose of the pills the paramedic had given to him, he couldn't lie down without having to vomit again, and therefore preferred to spend the rest of the night in a sitting position and in fresh air. After another half hour Alex and Liz had got up as well, so at the moment they were all sitting outside. The sky began to lighten up. Streaks of pink, gradually turning into red, had appeared in the light blue, heralds of the sun. It was going to be another warm, sunny day, but the four of them weren't enthusiastic about that. 

"I really begin to hate these permanent meetings", Carter was the first one to break the silence.

"That doesn't count, cuz you basically hate everything except your car." A thought came to Clear's mind. "Which reminds me – you haven't been that mad at your broken car this time, I mean, remembering the last – "

"Aw man, one just gets used to it, okay? It's the sixth within the last seven years."

The only person who didn't know that, almost swallowed her juice. 

"Okay, lets find out the damn new pattern, so we can cheat fucking death one more time 'n live in peace 'n harmony." All eyes turned to Alex, whose words had just sounded, as if there weren't any difficulties in that.

"Yeah well, why didn't _I _have that idea _myself_?!" The black-haired asked unnerved. "Okay, what is that right now? Is hell running out of innocent souls and therefore has sent his pro killers to finish some jobs that should've been carried out years ago?"

"Talking bout innocence; why should it be after _you_ then?" Liz grumbled bad-tempered. 

"Why did you use the plural?" Carter felt Alex scrutinizing him. 

"What the hell do I know?! _What_?" He asked back, but Alex was already immersed in his theories again, and didn't answer for a while. "You know what we talked about that day – when Liz asked about who's on the other side? And you said 'us'?"

"Yeah of course, _it_ – _us_." He shrugged. "Where's the problem?" 

"I guess there are more than two sides, that are involved. Three at least. It's –"

"What I _really_ wanna know", Carter interrupted him, being impatient a usual, but this time more caused by the severe headache he got, which was intensified by thinking the whole situation over carefully, "is why you don't have these premonitions anymore. I mean, that was _your_ job in that freaky game."

"Sorry, would you mind telling me, what's _yours_?" 

Carter shrugged again. "Am I the clairvoyant or what?" 

"Couldn't it be possible that only the signs are not that obvious anymore?" Liz thought loud.

"What – like somebody trying to prevent you from receiving them?" the jock laughed, then fell silent, as the idea began to take shape. "So _that's_ your third party, isn't it? You really think there's someone trying to _help_ us??" 

Now it was Alex' turn to shrug. "It makes sense, doesn't it? Look at all the things that happened to us, look at the order it's not following any more, the way something still desperately tries to fulfil that old pattern and can't, for whatever happens to us, isn't able to kill us."

"This is not 'Sixth Sense' and we are still alive." Carter mumbled. "So what have we become? Immortal?"

"_Protected_."

_ *Sorry, that's it for 2day, but I'll add more to that later okay? It's gonna be longer, K.-C. :o)*___

"Protected?? By whom??"

"I'll promise you'll be the first one to know, but let me find out first. okay?"

"Whoever or whatever doesn't do the job very well. The word protection has a different meaning to me."

"At least you're still alive." 

"Yeah, _still_."

"Any suggestions who it could be?" Clear wanted to know. 

Alex scratched his head. "I have absolutely no idea."

"What about that creepy weirdo, that morgue-guy?" Carter proposed. 

"Bludworth is a human, like us. All he ever did was talking, there weren't any actions, if you know what I mean. Nah, I really don't think so."

"What is so wrong with that idea, loser? Hey, _he_ was the one who told you bout all that stuff, wasn't he? Like no coincidences, blah blah."

"He wasn't very helpful. Just like someone in a ghost train, being paid to scare people. Okay, he knew some things he actually shouldn't have, but, after all, I'm still of the opinion, that we would've found out about all of that even without him."

"Anyway, I think, Carter's right, we should talk to him", Clear insisted.

"Oh my God, what have I done to deserve this?!"

Instead of an answer, she just sighed. 

"So, what are we waiting for? Let's book the flight back, man!"

"You wanna fly with a moderately severe concussion?!"

"A light one", he corrected, not caring about her doubting look. "So, pack your bags, what are you waiting for?"

"He isn't there." Alex said slowly.

"He - _what_?" Carter sat back on his chair. "_Browning_", he began in a warning tone, as being the first one to understand the meaning behind. "When the fuck you planned to inform us about that??"

"Could anybody please tell me what's going on?" Liz didn't get a word. 

"Fucking Browning goes his own way! This is no single player mode, you jerk!!"

"_You_ tell _me_??" He flared up.

"When have you found out?" Clear asked, trying to suppress the feeling of being hurt, because he hadn't even trusted enough in her, to tell her. 

"A few days ago. Before that night at the cemetery. I …. I tried to call him up, but the morgue management told me, that he had quit his job two years ago."

"What else?" Carter asked sceptically, because Alex avoided any eye contact.

"As the secretary put down the receiver, she didn't replace it correctly and I could hear her talk to her colleague, like …. how strange it was, as the taciturn, but nice Mr Bludworth, who had never been absent from work for one day in twenty years, suddenly had disappeared from one day to another. I've searched the net, and besides that article about Noriega, I also found one about a drowned man, whose body was found a year ago somewhere in the docks of New York, someone identified him as Bludworth, but I've seen the photo: never him."

"Is there anything else you concealed from us?"

"Man, it only would've been misleading, okay? Look, he disappeared two whole years ago n _only_ _now_ it starts again?? Just in case, it's him we're searching for; what did he do all the time? Preparation for case of emergency?"

"Maybe we would've liked to find out ourselves", Clear answered calmly. 

"Yeah, since when you are deceiving us?"

"I had my reasons. But the point is, even if it's him, we can be damn sure that we won't find him, until he decides to find us. And? Has he up to now? No. So what? We still go round in circles. This is not leading anywhere."

"Wait, waitwaitwaitwait, you _had_ your reasons?? We can't trust you!! This concerns all of us!! Weren't those _your_ words??" Carter moaned, and held his head in his hands. "Aw really, Browning you're giving me a headache!" 

"Okay, I was wrong, I made a mistake, I'm sorry, just shoot me!"

"Maybe I should. Just to prove your theory of somehow-immortality", Carter grinned evilly. 

"Aw guys, c'mon, not that again", Liz complained. 

For the first time within the last hour, Alex looked Carter straight in the eyes, a somewhat tired and thoughtful look in his, the usual provoking one in his friend's, and he added in a low tone, close to mouthing, only Carter was able to hear the words. "_Maybe you should_."

****

For about one week nothing worth mentioning happened. The three others still were a bit angry, because of Alex' solo effort, but finally even Carter gave up the idea of a 'reunion' and the possibility of getting some answers to their questions. The atmosphere remained tensed and therefore it surely had been a bad idea to leave them alone that day. Due to Carter's constant accusations for years, even Alex' stock of patience had been used up. Though his concussion had nearly gone, Carter still couldn't cope with the fact that he nearly had been killed. Being the impatient character he was, and since they were obviously unable to escape the whole thing, he did what he always had done; he focused all his wrath on the only person that in his opinion took responsibility for everything. It would've been wrong to maintain that he was too stupid to understand that he was mistaken, in reality he just did not care about being unfair, as long as it seemed to ease his desperation and tense. 

"C'mon Alex, hasn't that freak told u anything more interesting, like how we could get rid of it??" Carter put down his coffee on he table, with more noise than he had to. If they didn't find more about the new design soon, he - 

"Stop calling him a freak!"

"N what would you like me to call him, huh? Weirdo? Jerk? Lo-"

"His name's _Tod_!" Alex really tried to stay calm and not to react to his provocations, but he felt anger grow inside of him each second.

"Nah, his name _was_ Tod, don't you forget that, psycho!" 

"Ya know what?" Alex burst out, "I really wish _you_ would've been on the plane! I wish it would've killed you instead of Tod, George or Billy or even one of the others I didn't even know!! Man, I'm so sick of you and your griping! _'Aw, I survived a plane crash, n now death's after me n it's all that shithead's fault, yammeryammer!'_ I'M SORRY, OKAY?? I'M SORRY THAT YOU HAD TO EXPERIENCE THIS TERRIBLE CRASH, I'M SORRY THAT YOUR GIRLFRIEND SNUFFED IT, I'M SORRY THAT YOUR LIFE'S GOTTEN TOTALLY OUT OF CONTROL, I'M SORRY THAT YOU'RE LIVING IN PERMANENT DANGER SINCE THAT TIME, NOT SEEING A WAY OUT AND THAT YOU CAN'T HANDLE IT AND TRY TO DROWN YOUR SORROWS IN JACK-JIM-JOHNNIE!! BUT THAT'S NOT ONLY HAPPENING TO YOU, FUCKING SHIT, YOU DON'T GET THAT INTO YOUR HEAD?? IT'S HAPPENING TO ALL OF US, TO YOU, CLEAR, LIZ, ME AND THE OTHERS!!" Carter's eyes burnt into his as he continued. "I dunno _what_ power was of the opinion _you_ had to be saved. Believe me if I could turn back time to that moment where you – " He gave a cold laugh. 

"Just go on", Carter hissed. "Be frank with me." 

"Why am trying my ass off to get you through all the time?" He spoke more to himself than to the other. "You thought we'd become friends or stuff?? _Forget it_!"

Instead of an answer Carter just pushed him back a bit.

"Stop that!" Alex snorted with rage.

"Awwww, and what about me just doing it once more?" He pushed him back once again, this time more violently. Something exploded in Alex. Usually he was not the violent guy, but it was just enough and years of bottling his rage up inside himself, it vented all at once. Certainly Carter had reckoned on resistance, but the fist, that slammed into his face all of a sudden, made him reel back nevertheless. His head flew back and he felt blood spraying out of his nose. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, staring at it. "You're so dead, man!!" He pounced on him and threw him to the ground. Without thinking, he started bashing him. He'd show him, he'd make a stretcher case out of that little loser. It was all Alex' fault, that shit-awful life they were leading, constantly being fleeing from something, which would catch up with them sooner or later and do them in. Though Carter was superior to him concerning strength, Alex somehow managed to shove him away and get back on his feet again. Blood was running from his nose and mouth, covering his shirt, but he didn't care about it. His breath panting and he felt as if he there was not nearly sufficient oxygen reaching his lungs. As hard as he could he could he kicked his ribs, thereupon flooring him with a scream of pain, but falling, he grabbed for Alex' leg, knocking him over as well. Full of hate they hit out at each other. Alex felt his forces gradually fade; he wouldn't prevent his opponent overlong from thrashing him into nirvana. He had to get back on his feet again somehow. Carter, in the meantime being quite shattered himself, tried to get his breath back for a moment. Alex took advantage of the seconds of inattentiveness, pushed him away and got up shakily. There was no space on his body that didn't hurt. He coughed and felt and felt a lot of blood running out of his mouth, but he had no time to worry about it, for he wasn't prepared for Carter's tenacity, who jumped up only a few seconds later, ramming his shoulder into his stomach with full force. Alex was careening into some easy chairs and a table in front of the sliding door that led to balcony. He felt the hard crack as his head hit the massive wood of the tabletop and blacked out. 

Motionless Carter stood in the middle of the room. Only his thorax lifted and lowered under his heavy gasps. He looked down on his shirt; one couldn't tell what was predominant: the rips or the bloodstains. Out of the corner of his eye he watched Alex, who didn't appear to be a big threat to him momentarily. "Get up", he said coldly. No reaction. "Browning, I said _get up_!" Reluctantly he made some steps toward him and looked down on him sceptically. Man, he really had done a good job: Alex' shirt approximately resembled his own, only his face looked worse, which at least he assumed, since he couldn't judge it correctly _that_ way. Without letting him out of sight, he went backwards to the mirror in the corridor, staring into it wordless. Perhaps his comparison was a bit misleading. He shot an angry glance towards the balcony door and went back. "Okay, you had your show. I won't repeat it once more, Browning!" But again his threat had no effect. His toe bumped into the boy's leg. One more time. But Alex' eyes remained closed, and he did not move in the least. "I'm warning you, man", he grumbled menacingly, as he, prepared for an attack each moment, bent down to him, struggling for breath, as a sharp pain shot through his leg. He shifted his weight, until it diminished. Unwillingly he shook him by the shoulder. He was still far too furious to be worried in the slightest, but that thing started to seem suspiciously to him. "For fuck's sake, Browning, stop that, will ya?!" He turned Alex head towards himself. It was like a short flashback. The blood on the floor didn't only come from the ruptured lips, the damaged nose nor the various scratches. He looked at the pool of blood under his head.

"Browning?"

He tried to ignore the feeling. He didn't need to get nervous because that wimp was a tiny bit hurt. They weren't friends, after all Alex had said that out loud. Automatically his fingers felt Alex' neck for a pulse, unable to locate any. He took his wrist, nothing, then he held his own back of his hand close to Alex mouth and nose, but he didn't sense anything; no breath, no heartbeat, absolutely nothing. His chest didn't lift or lower a millimetre. 

****

"C'mon Alex. stop that fucking shit!" An inner voice told him, that Alex' breathing and pulse frequency actually had to be similar to a steam engine's, and had just leant forward to lay his head onto his chest, as he heard a low noise.

"Booh", Alex whispered and opened his eyes. Carter jerked back and stared at him. Alex got up, clenching his teeth, and tried to ignore the rising dizziness. His fingers felt the back of his head and he watched the blood on his hand, as Carter continued to stare at him quite dumbfounded. His nose twitching. "You fucking little shithead!" he gasped out, gritting his teeth, close to go for him again. Alex looked at him up from below, calmly, but it had somewhat lurking. 

"Don't you ever do that again!" Carter's voice could hardly be heard. His opponent slowly raised his head. He had never seen him like that. He hadn't known how cold Alex could be. His blue eyes, that were usually so gentle, had got the colour of glacial ice. "Or _else_?" 

"Else, next time I'm really gonna break your neck", he replied in such a casual tone, as if talking about the weather. 

"Yeah?" Alex asked with an icy smile and got up, without averting the look. 

Though one wouldn't notice it, Carter was confused by his behaviour. That wasn't that little high school loser Browning he knew. Though it went against the grain to admit it; something odd was radiating from him. He wasn't sure, whether it was dangerous. And for the first time in his life he stopped voluntarily, thoughtfully staring at the bathroom door that had closed behind Alex. 

****

"Why didn't you have any pulse?" Carter asked.

"Maybe you're just too unable to take it. You don't use your thumb for it. Didn't you pay attention in first-aid-course? Oh no, wait, you were always so busy with practising your own private little mouth-to-mouth resuscitation."

They were sitting in the corridor of the hospital, waiting for the nurse, to get them some painkillers out of the medicine chamber. 

"Chic dressing, Browning, suits you excellently. Underlines your idiot image."

Clear and Liz exchanged astonished glances. Carter didn't react to the comment on Terry in the least. Superficially everything was the way it always had been; both of them hurling kind words at each other.

"So why don't _you_ wear it then?"

But something wasn't right. Almost like an armistice, that could turn into chaos every minute. During the way to the hospital both of them had been silent and they couldn't find out from them, what their argument had been about. The atmosphere remained odd. As if the brawl had clarified the position. In a disturbing way. 


	11. Chapter 10

_…. though actually there is no excuse for it._

A/N:_ *Okay, I know that what I'm doing now is really pathetic and none of those nice readers who have kept faith with me, deserves this. But as you might have noticed, it's been a long time since I've last worked on my fic. The reason is as easy as bad: I'm stuck. Totally. Not like Miss Orrico, though the despair corresponds somehow. I know this sounds sooo melodramatic, but I just can't help myself. Actually the story's already finished, the last chapter's written, but I just can't think of the last but one, which has to be written, because otherwise the end wouldn't make sense (if the fic ever did). _

_The second problem is, that I decided to write a sequel to 'Control'. It's called 'Life Is A Game' and as I already wrote at its beginning it was never meant to be written, but unfortunately while writing 'Control', my 'first Death's Design' didn't work any longer n so I had to change lots of things. _

_After having a long fight with myself I nearly decided to leave the fic like it is, without any end, then I thought that if I'd write the end first, the rest would come, but obviously it didn't. Seems as if I overestimated my skills. Not that I ever thought me being a great author, but that I'm even unable to finish that, _really_ makes me think!_

_So here I am, stuck, sad and left without any self-confidence concerning my writing. I'm not quite sure what to do now, but maybe I will really only give you the last chapter and try to explain in a few words what _should_ have happened in the 10th chapter._

_Once again: I'm sooo sorry and believe me, no one has to tell me how pathetic this is for I know damn well and only thinking about my bloody stupidity painfully turns my stomach. So if nobody is willing to read any further, you have my fullest sympathy.*_

A/N, 2nd _*After hours of trying to find a solution I decided, to give myself one last chance. I'm gonna watch FD tonight with my best friend (no matter how tired we are, Sherry, this time we WILL do this! lol) n then try to write the damn chapter and if I don't succeed I will …. see what to do _then_.*_

_*Big thanx to Lara for her nice review; I'm really looking forward to __ur__ fic ('I know, we are, we are the lucky ones, dear.' Bif Naked: 'Lucky') Well, further I have to admit that unfortunately I didn't watch FD last night, but it doesn't make much difference. I gotta consider the fic finished and since I've been warning you constantly that it's gonna be really sad and stupid and clipped, on with the story.*_

The scene seemed to be part of a horror movie. But it was reality. Their reality. Something they never would have thought could come true, a long time ago. Where had all those problems gone they had considered being so important and that appeared so little compared with what they were going through now? Before the plane crashed down, a normal day in school had been so easy for them. Five days a week going to school, listening to stupid boring stuff, most of it would certainly never be of great use afterwards. The unbearable long lessons until finally the bell rang and set them free. A normal day in their lives had been like: 

For Carter Horton: trying to get as many dorkhead's asses kicked as possible – especially Alex Browning's, Tod Waggner's and Billy Hitchcock's – (30%); making out with his girlfriend (60%); being pissed off (70%). 

For Alex Browning: trying to escape the school jock with his best friend (60%); pissing the jock off (basically 100%, because he simply disliked his existence); praying for a world in which Carter Horton was their personal slave (40%), trying to find a girl to make out with (100%) 

Clear Rivers: not really caring whether school was out or not for her life at home wasn't that much better (40%); hoping that one day people would stop joking about her name – especially calling her Queer Rivers – (20%); creating strange sculptures of the secret love of her life (70%)

And now it seemed that their only purpose in life could be reduced to one simple word: survive.

Right now once again each of them wished that the final class never had been allowed to travel to Paris. Well, on closer examination, they hadn't. 

*****

The sirens were still wailing and the surroundings were bathed in flickering red and blue light. The clouds of smoke still hadn't been lifted and gave the light a somewhat mysterious touch. The destroyed machine lay on the ground like a defeated monster out of a fantasy novel; it's torn and sharp edges pointing in the air like an admonishing index finger. The screams had finally ceased and for a moment there was an eerie silence until the fire brigade took up their clear-up operations again. The more time passed the less hope was left to find more survivors. Even the toughest among the mass consisting of firemen, police officers and paramedics were obviously shocked by what they saw; since the two trains had crashed into one another with full speed, none of the engineers able to stop their wagons in time for there hadn't been any warning on their screens that would've told them about the oncoming train. 

The four usual survivors were standing on top of a hill, hidden by some trees so they could watch what was going on down there without being seen themselves. Clear sat on the ground and Alex who had put his arms around her, could feel her shiver though it was a quite warm night. Liz leant against one of the trees, her arms folded and peered through some leaves and branches, while Carter had an eye on the surroundings so they wouldn't be surprised by some unpleasant visitors. He felt as if a part of him was still sitting in the train, trying to decide on what he wanted to have for dinner. Two days ago they had decided to go to New York, back to the place where everything had begun. Maybe they would be able to find out more there. 

"A fucking safe place, such a train, isn't it?" Carter said, turning to Clear, whose idea it had been to go by train instead of taking the plane. "And just that much faster."

"Horton, shut your mouth!" Alex fumed. 

"What is it? I was just asking a simple little question, Mr Overprotective."

Alex rolled his eyes. 

"Another one", Liz mumbled as she saw one of the first-aid attendants cover a body that was streaming with blood in the spin of the red light. It must be hundreds of victims. "Why aren't we dead?"

"If u feel like, just go down n die as well", Carter proposed. 

"We're not even hurt this time."

Without any warning, Carter gave her a slap on the back of her head, a littler harder than he had wanted to. "Are u fucking crazy?!" she yelled and Clear and Alex could just get up in time to prevent her from going for him. "What was that for, you asshole??" she asked furiously, trying to get free off Clears hands. 

"I just wanted to make sure we are still alive!" He claimd as if it was absolutely normal to hit someone out of no reason. "You know, ghosts – no matter – no real body – just air and …."

"The word you're searching for is ectoplasm, u _airhead_!!" Liz grumbled, gritting her teeth, as she rubbed her head. 

"After all it's reassuring to know that we are still alive."

As soothing as that fact should have been, in Alex' eyes it was more than disturbing. And even more disturbing that he was starting to understand it. It was completely sick, but he could see the structure. Finally he seemed to have found out Death's design for this time. Once revealed he couldn't understand what had taken him so long from getting it. It was so simple, cruel, but simple. Last time Death had created a more complicated plan. It didn't matter whether they understood it or not for it had been sure to get them all anyway. This time it was _part_ of the new plan _that_ they understood. And he did. Unconsciously he shivered. 

"Alex, you okay?" Clear asked quietly, again leaning against him. 

He nodded. "It's just the wind", he lied.

"Oh yeah the wind. A real _hurricane." Carter eyed him suspiciously for not even a tiny little breeze had moved the leaves, but Alex didn't notice as he looked down the hill. He couldn't tell for how long they had been standing here, to escape the police and the reporters with all of them questions. They wanted to avoid being mentioned in connection with this since they didn't attach importance to refresh their acquaintance with two certain FBI agents, who surely would be called as soon as their names were mentioned again. To be honest he wondered why they hadn't shown up last time at the restaurant where the police had taken down their particulars. _

"Let's go home, I 'm starving to death", Carter required, being the only person to able to think about food right now. "Alex, can we??" 

Alex nodded, still standing with the back to him. He hesitated before he turned around and followed them to the car, slightly nodding again as if to confirm a silent agreement with someone they couldn't see. 

****

"Man helloho", Carter grumbled as they were waiting for the elevator to get them down. It was late at night and they had just left the big apartment they both shared with Clear. Alex and Clear would've never been able to even rent such a huge downtown loft, but Carter's father owned several apartments and houses in the city and allowed his son to use one of them. And since they had decided that it was the best not to live too far away from each other, and Carter had refused to live elsewhere (e.g. in a small dwelling house that didn't meet his high private requirements), they were forced to move in as well, paying a nearly ridiculous rent. But the loft was huge enough to get out of each other's way and though Carter was the owner he was absent most of the time, like he had always done, so the thought of 'living close to each other' basically lost its sense. Living in two different apartments really started to annoy Carter for he had to drive constantly from one to the other to get his stuff. And especially at that night, once home he had preferred not to leave again, but he had to get some more stuff since his last packed back was burnt in the train accident only hours ago. They had already booked a flight to NY for tomorrow evening. The crash had merely made them all the more determined to go there. 

"Could you come?"

Alex eyed him suspiciously. "You and the elevator are close friends?"

"Shut up, Browning, or you gonna take the window."

Him rolled his eyes. "Oh fear, fear, where art thou?" 

Impatiently Carter pushed the button again.

"It won't come faster that way", Alex commented, but his friend just slammed on the button again and a loud 'bing' was heard. Carter smirked self-satisfied as the doors opened a second later, then his grin froze. He put a hand onto the pocket of his jacket and sighed. "What did I tell you when I threw my purse n my cell at the bed?" 

Alex, who was standing between the doors to keep them open, first frowned, then a grin spread across his face. "Remind me of it?"

Carter grimaced and started walking back to their apartment, cursing Alex for his forgetfulness, and grumbling something like Alex could go and get his damn phone himself which was lying beside his. 

Him laughed and entered the elevator without thinking of waiting for Carter. The metallic door gave a strange 'clack' and stopped, then fully opened, before beginning to close again. It was already too late as he heard the sound of steel cables ripping. Instinctively, Alex tried to grab hold of a bar at the sidewall, as the huge lift gave a heavy jerk downwards and then stopped, sending him onto the floor.

"Browning?? Fuck, you okay??" He heard Carter's voice through the thick metal.

"I guess so", he called back.

"You gotta get outta there!"

"Oh really??" he mumbled back at his friend's 'helpful' comments, standing up again, as another jolt ran through the construction.

"Push the alarm-button!"

Alex leant forward to do so, but nothing happened. "It doesn't work!" he informed Carter - both of them not very surprised – who was trying to open the doors from the outside. Always having preferred to own the only apartment on the floor, he now regretted it for the first time. He didn't dare to leave to get some help, the last time he had done so, three people had died and though he knew that it hadn't been his fault, he stayed. Under different circumstances he would've gone – even after years he still wouldn't be completely able to explain why he didn't.

Fucking high tech. The doors hardly moved, but after a few minutes of biggest exertion he managed to open them about far less than one foot wide. The elevator jerked dangerously as he leant forward to try and help Alex get out. "C'mon", he stretched out his arm, but Alex shook his head. "I'll never be able to get through this small gap."

"But maybe we can open it, if we try together, otherwise you gonna – "His eyes widened in disbelief as he watched Alex taking a step back, slightly shaking his head again. "No."

"What the fuck are you doing??" The steal cables dangerously shrieked. He didn't like the look in Alex' eyes, he didn't like it at all. It was strange, final. Terrifyingly final. Like that day – 

The elevator dropped more and Carter had to get down on his knees, for half of the door had already disappeared out of sight. Again he reached his hand towards his friend. "Alex, if you don't take a step forward, take my hand and get out I swear I'll beat the shit out of you once more!! Alex!!" 

But still he denied and took another step back.

"This is useless –"

"No, it's not", Alex responded. "This is how we can beat it. You remember what we talked about that day in Liz' apartment? She was right. It's all about me_. I_ am the connection and it won't stop until I'm dead. And Clear-"

"I don't believe in that fucking stupid new-life-theory if you're hinting at that, this is bullshit!! You –"

"It's not about new life. It's about death. _My_ death." Alex gave a little laugh and Carter deadly wished to be able to pull him out of that elevator to smash his head at one of the walls as long as it would take until this stupid thoughts finally left his insane mind. 

"Since when do you think that shit?"

A faint smile crossed his face, "I guess a part of me knew ever since …. I was just willing to believe you guys, that it wasn't the truth." 

Carter stared at him, refusing to accept what he had just heard. He took a deep breath. "Okay, you know what? I don't give a fuck! We gonna find another way out, this just can't be it!! So fucking help me open the doors!!"

As a comment to what he had just said, an ear piercing screech filled the floor.

"Get the fuck outta there!!" Carter yelled as the machine gave another jerk. The steel cables had become pretty thin and it was literally only hanging by a thread. "Alex, don't –" Just in time he was able to pull his arm out of the danger zone, though still not fast enough, so he felt an intense pain as part of the metal left a deep scratch on it, as the last cable finally ripped and the lift crashed down to the ground. Carter stared at the black hole of nothing behind the gap, unable to move while listening to the screaming metal on it's a way to - only seconds later he heard a heavy crash as the elevator hit the ground, and the impact seemed to shake the whole building. He felt his knees getting weak, but he ignored it and stumbled forward, towards the direction of the stairwell, running down, trying to drive away the images and scenes that played in his mind, knowing they had already become reality down there.

****

Clear was crossing the room again. She just couldn't sit still. Something had happened, she felt it. She had tried to reach her friends on their mobiles, but nobody had picked up. Liz did her best to calm her, but even an overdose of sedatives wouldn't have been able to soothe her now. Finally the phone rang and suddenly the stone inside of her stomach seemed to weight a hundred pounds more, making her unable to move. She stared at the receiver, and only lifted it after the third ring. "Alex?" she asked hopefully though she already knew it wasn't him. There were various sounds in the background at the other end of the line, but she couldn't assign them. Close to the mouthpiece she could hear someone breathing. "Hello?" she asked again, but still didn't get an answer, instead of it sounded as if that person was clasping the receiver tighter. "Carter? Is that you?" Was that a snuffle? No, that couldn't be, if it was him, he never would – She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "Where are you?"

She could hear him taking a deep breath. "Lincoln Memorial Hospital …. Come here."

"Where's Alex?" She almost didn't dare to ask the question.

"Just com here –"

"Carter, tell –"

"Just – come here", he repeated self-controlled and hung up.


	12. Epilogue

Epilogue

Carter didn't feel anything. Absolutely nothing. Terry had been the only person he had ever allowed to wake feelings in him and her death had been the only one he had ever been willing to mourn. Otherwise he had simply unwound, switched them off. The truth was, that he couldn't bear to permit them now, but he never would've admitted that even to himself, since had always though himself to be strong and the others weak. He had been hating Alex all his life. First for the simple fact that he was existing, then for his premonitions, with all the bits and pieces. Guys like him just pissed him off and he would never be able to understand how those jerks managed to be so happy nevertheless. Them idiots. He stared at Alex' jacket that he was still holding in his hand. Then glanced at Clear. Her head was lying on Liz' legs, who was stroking her hair, her eyes staring into space. Now and then Liz wiped away the tears rolling down her own cheek. If it was good to cry? He didn't know. She turned her head as if she had felt his look and forced herself a smile. "I'm sure – in a while - he's going to be okay."

"Why are you crying then?"

She shrugged and passed her hands over her eyes. "Dunno. They are just dropping." She would of liked to ask him whether he ever cried, but didn't. After all they weren't that close friends. 

Carter stared towards her direction thoughtfully, without really seeing her. Until now his only problems had consisted in keeping himself and the others alive. So that fucking fate wouldn't win. Save the others to stay alive himself. And therefore only. That was the most important. Clear hadn't been right. There were times he wished he'd never gone for Alex and instead of would've stayed on the plane with Terry. But in the end his damn obstinacy won. He was never going to die. Only if he decided that it was time. Otherwise the three others didn't mean anything to him. But slowly something had begun to stir inside of him: faint doubt. 

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get this terrible picture out of his head. It had been a nightmare down in the hall. People ran around, screaming and crying and Carter had thought them to be the typical hystericals and couldn't understand why _they were so scared since nothing had happened to _them_. Only then he had realized that the parts of the destroyed cabin must have caused other people's death as well. For a split second he could see a cruel glimmer of hope; if Alex' theory had been right, those people couldn't have died shortly after him, killed the same way, if - This meant his friend still had to be alive …. But then the paramedics and the firemen had brought him out of the mess of debris and cables and dust, his eyes staring blankly, surely seeing nothing of what was happening around him. The paramedics who examined him, now shone a little lamp into his eyes, constantly murmuring, just a loud that Carter was able to still understand the words. "Low pulse, no breathing, pupils fixed and dilated." He glanced at his colleague as he continued. "Coma."_

Trying to escape the usual fight in his mind; his stubbornness versus his …. No, actually it were the two sides of the same mulishness, he started to leaf through one of the magazines, unable to concentrate on the single articles. He took another one, took a quick look at the contents and then reached out for the next one. Who the hell wanted to read boring articles about the new air safety law, famous people's gravestones, Spanish cooking, shark attacks or the illegal possession of firearms in a situation like that? Throwing the mags back on the table he spilt his coffee. The dark brown liquid spread out over the table, steeping some of the papers, before it reached the edge and started to run down on the ground, the single drops soaking into the carpet, leaving dirty splodges on it. As if there wasn't anything more interesting than that, he leant forward to watch the occurrence, intending to distract, but his brain wouldn't stop brooding, thinking of the future. Where the hell was all of this leading to? Would he spend the rest of his life like that? What a prospect! It had to stop, it just _had_ to. Whatever had happened – or was going to - to Alex mustn't have been in vain. But a single phrase kept turning round and round in his head, like a record. _This is not the end. This is not the end. __This__ not_

He closed his eyes. 

~ THE END ~ 

****

**To All My Wonderful Readers**

To all my wonderful readers, still I thank you so much for reading my story, your lovely reviews gave me the strength to carry on (I know that sounds corny, but I mean it):

_Beach_: My first reviewer ever, do I really have to explain what that means? I dunno how fanfiction.net dared to remove ur review. Shame on them! (The next day: I swear that ur review wasn't there when I wrote that yesterday, but fanfiction.net just put it back. Better if, muahahaha)

_Dharke_: Thanks a million for all the cool comments on my fic and for all those funny mails! You know that without ur help I maybe never would've been able to post my stories at all. 

_dyingdread_: I still wanna know what exactly u meant with that comment about Jesus :o) 

_Kazuha-chan_: Vielen Dank, daß Du diese 'Scheiß-Geschichte' liebst! :o) Wie war's übrigens in Rumänien?

_Lara_:

_ 'It was a Monday, when my lover told me  
"Never pay the Reaper with love only"  
what could I say to you, except "I love you"  
and "I'd give my life for yours"  
I know  
We are  
We are the lucky ones  
I know  
We are  
We are the lucky ones, dear' _Bif Naked: 'Lucky'

Which part of the song reminded u first of Alex & Clear? Mine was, of course, the most obvious one 'I'd give my life for yours'. What will ur story be about, I mean, will it be an FD fic as well, cause u sounded as if? 

princess_diva06: Finally I managed to update, I _still can't believe it. :o)_

I can't believe I was finally able to end this fic, but some power must have had enough sympathy for me to let me. So if u still haven't lost ur faith in me and are interested in some more FD-stuff, there's a sequel to the sequel and I'd be glad if u'd R&R :o))


End file.
